


The Secrets Among Us

by NeonGhostCat



Series: Beyond MIRA [1]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Deception, Espionage, Fandom Blind Friendly, Foul Language, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Pining, Polus (Among Us), Protectiveness, Romance, Secrets, Slow Build, Strong One/Soft One, Thriller, Worldbuilding, and they were crewmates - Freeform, hidden identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 65,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28090047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonGhostCat/pseuds/NeonGhostCat
Summary: Black is an intimidating engineer. Lime is a medic with a sweet face and a polished exterior. Assigned to the same team sent to repair an abandoned MIRA outpost, they are drawn to each other from their first meeting… for different reasons. Sabotage eventually points to an unsettling truth:  there is an Impostor among them. When everyone seems to have secrets, surviving without regrets may be the best they can hope for.Alternatively:  The strong and silent type goes soft for the cutie with mild social anxiety and tries to protect him from the world. His quest would be a whole lot easier if they weren’t effectively stranded at a Polus outpost with the looming threat of death over their heads.
Relationships: Black/Lime (Among Us)
Series: Beyond MIRA [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118828
Comments: 96
Kudos: 91





	1. MIRA HQ Meet-Cute

Being moved to another MIRA station was always stressful. Black had worked for MIRA Inc for going on six years now and while he’d grown somewhat numb to transferring, it had never really become routine.

Even though it was somewhat demoralizing to decide exactly what you wanted to pack as your only source of non-MIRA provided comforts for months on end, it became a little easier every time. Like most people who had to pack light, Black had learned how to make the most of the depressingly small amount of space in the MIRA standard-sized duffel bag allowed to each crewmate for “outside items”. Thankfully, the MIRA Efficiency Research Department had determined that it was more cost-effective to produce very durable standard-issue duffel bags rather than replacing cheap ones more frequently, so it was shocking what a seasoned MIRA employee could bring with them if they were determined to.

Still, no matter what you managed to bring with you, your personal quarters always seemed pitifully bare. As the saying went among MIRA Repair Corps workers: “Endure like a pauper now to live like a king later.”

Working for MIRA Inc paid well even in the scut jobs. If you were part of the Repair Corps, it was significantly more lucrative even before factoring in hazard pay, time bonuses, and compensated side-work. Of course to balance those benefits you were usually stationed for anywhere from six months to three years out in the ass end of nowhere; often working on rickety, dangerous, and even two-steps-from-condemned sites… Sometimes you had to really strain yourself to remember all of the credits streaming into your bank account as you stared off into the cold darkness of space or the barren wastelands that surrounded your station and tried not to go mad.

Black was a Repair Corps crewman returning from the mandatory minimum of one month off between tours.

As usual, along with about twenty or thirty others he rode an ugly old shuttle from the planet-side city he’d been staying at to MIRA 1-11 on one of the terraformed moons orbiting the planet. They’d soon be sorted into a new group, assigned a color (usually your previous one, though sometimes you were unlucky and had to learn to respond to a new designation), and sent in a dropship to wherever was next on the seemingly endless list of dilapidated MIRA sites in need of repairs.

It would _probably_ be somewhere within the same sector, but considering Black was currently assigned four sectors away from where he joined MIRA Inc, he wouldn’t bet money on it.

Once the shuttle was ready to disgorge its passengers at the sector’s headquarters (if you could call a tiny research station attached to a dropship terminal by such a fancy name), Black unclipped his restraints and gathered his duffel bag from the compartment set into the wall behind him. He didn’t rush; patiently following the others out onto the launchpad and into the halls of HQ. He could tell from the way some of them looked all around them with huge eyes trying not to trip over their own feet that it was their first time off-planet. His lips quirked up into a small, sardonic smile as he ended up passing most of them even as casually as he proceeded.

 _Wait until they get to the sky walk — they’ll probably shit themselves_ , he thought, mildly amused.

Like the other veterans, though he didn’t rush forward he also didn’t dawdle. He sauntered past the entry hall and the closed doors that lead to the crew quarters. The shuttle had arrived during work hours, so of course the crew quarters were currently sealed off. It was unlikely they’d even be assigned to an overnight dorm tonight, so he didn’t give the doors a glance, just letting his eyes idly slide over the photos of research teams that lined the hall’s other side. By the time he got to the Y-shaped intersection, he heard someone trying to organize the straggling newcomers behind him.

Black made his way onto the sky walk, his keen ears taking note of the transition of sound his boots made as they went from tile, to stone, to reinforced glass in short succession. He steadfastly ignored the towers of gas clouds that rose from the moon’s surface far below the walkway as he made his way to the office to get his assignment. Views of that sort had long ceased being either a source of fear or awe to him.

Luckily there seemed to be plenty of staff on shift because those ahead of him had been processed already. He was able to simply walk directly into the office and up to an idle administrator immediately. He passed along his legal name and submitted to having his palm scanned to verify his identity before it was once again stripped away from him in favor of a MIRA mandated designation. It was fine — it wasn’t his true identity anyway.

He would be called Black again and he was being shipped to Polus.

Black felt his brows twitch as he recognized the name of the planet and hoped he was mistaken. The sinking feeling in his stomach told him otherwise, however. Black said nothing, just giving a slight nod to the woman in pink as he grimly pressed his thumb to a different scanner, signing away his next six months to go live on the brittle crust of a planet that was simultaneously freezing from the frequent blizzards and roasting from the lava barely below the surface.

Worse, he recalled that the constant threat of seismic activity could have the whole research station catastrophically collapse if the rock it was built on finally gave way to the molten core beneath. Seismic stabilizers were meant to mitigate that risk, but…

Well — that’s what the Repair Corps was meant for: going to shitty areas and fixing them up again so the nice white collar MIRA employees wouldn’t be too afraid — or imperiled — to do their jobs. He would hear more about the specifics of whichever site on Polus they were being sent later, but he’d worked with several Corps members who’d been sent to Polus before. Every one of them had bitched endlessly about it regardless of which station they were assigned to, so his hopes weren’t high they’d be assigned to a cushy job like fixing the hot tubs at a resort.

Frankly, even if it were currently simultaneously frozen under a foot of ice and on fire, he’d still have put his thumbprint on the scanner. He hadn’t worked six years with MIRA Inc to get into a trusted position only to blow it now. And somewhere like Polus where there would be plenty of available research side-work that would give free access to areas that would normally be highly restricted to someone like him was perfect.

Still musing, Black headed off to the cafeteria, his heavy duffel bag slung casually over his shoulder. As he expected, the long lunch tables were filled with groups of people. Still more were loitering around the walls or out on the balcony.

New people entering the caf on Assignment Day was such a common thing that Black didn’t expect anyone to notice, much less react to his entrance. He was hardly the first one from this shuttle’s passengers to finish being processed, after all. But someone sitting on the end of one of the benches turned towards him with a bright and friendly smile regardless.

“Ah! By what you’re wearing, I’ll bet you’re Black. Hello!”

He sucked in a breath as he felt the greeting run through him like a golden liquid. His gaze sought out the speaker.

Black was particularly sensitive to voices. The one belonging to the younger man with the heartbreaking face, stylish green hair that fell into his eyes, and a clear blue gaze hit him like a truck. It was a light, gentle sort of voice that wrapped around you like a set of hands and embraced you tenderly. Protective instincts long left dormant roared to life inside of him and he knew in his bones that if he had the good fortune to be placed at the same outpost he would make it his priority to ensure the guy with the golden voice was safe.

There was a pause that Black realized belatedly was about to sour and become awkward. Embarrassed, he averted his eyes and murmured a reply. “Yeah. I’m Black… Going to Polus. You?”

He didn’t bother to be invited — he moved to slide carefully down into the empty space on the bench beside the voice’s owner, half-ignoring the people the other man had been chatting with as he set his duffel on the floor behind him.

Thankfully, the green-haired younger man didn’t appear to find that either unwelcome or unusual. He just continued smiling up at him with his small, sweet smile and not a flicker in his eyes. “Same! Polus 339, right?” Satisfaction and relief flooded through Black at the confirmation. He nodded in reply. “I’m Lime, by the way. And this is Blue and Brown.” Lime indicated each of the others with a graceful motion of his hand. “They’re going to Polus 339 too.”

“Shit, son!” one of the other two sitting at that end of the table broke out abruptly. “ _Warn_ us before you drop bass on someone out of nowhere! My bones are still rattlin’! …I think I just got pregnant!”

Black reluctantly tore his eyes away from Lime to nod to the other two on the other side of the table from them, a ghost of a smile on his lips as the only acknowledgment of the man’s joke.

Brown was a lively, scrappy looking fellow with two-toned hair. The black sides were shaved close and the longer white top was spiked and gelled back, like a relaxed porcupine’s quills. Several piercings lined the curves of his ears and his facial hair was meticulously kept. He was the one that had spoken and he was still grinning over at Black with an open-mouthed smile.

Blue was almost his opposite. The man had a very self-possessed, scholarly look. His blue hair was nearly shoulder-length, neatly dressed, and flowing around his narrow face. His near-black eyes were hooded as he looked back at Black with the air of someone trying to get a deep read on him. His thin lips curved upwards in a sort of lazy arrogance. If Brown made him think of a porcupine, Blue made him think of a fox.

His instincts warned Black to stay on his feet around those two, but he didn’t think he’d made enemies of them, so he let his eyes return to Lime. Finally, almost belatedly, he answered Brown. “You’ll get used to it. It’s nothing special once you do. I’m already bored of it, myself.” His lips twisted slightly as he glanced briefly back at Brown.

Black’s deep voice seemed to have that effect on humans. He wasn’t entirely certain if it were something in their genetic make-up that provoked surprise and — for some — infatuation, or if it were a culture thing, but for the first few days of a new assignment he had to weather the delighted fascination from the humans. At least until they inevitably grew bored and treated him like anyone else on the team rather than a human-shaped soundboard.

Unfortunately for him, based on Lime’s reaction, _he_ didn’t have that same positive response. Or if he did, he hid it well, perhaps. Lime’s clear gaze and soft smile were as friendly and as impersonal as a receptionist’s. Black didn’t know whether to be relieved he wouldn’t have to see the waxing and waning of Lime’s interest as the novelty of his voice wore off or be disappointed he couldn’t inspire an instant connection that he could try to build into something deeper.

After the basic introductions were over, they mentioned their specialties: Black was an engineer; Lime was a medic. Brown and Blue were an engineer and technician respectively.

Before any of them could launch into a new topic or expand upon the previous, Forte, current director of MIRA 1-11, jumped lightly on top of one of the cafeteria benches and cleared his throat loudly to get everyone’s attention. Almost immediately, Forte drew all the stragglers to gather around him so he could smoothly begin organizing the milling individuals into the four teams that were about to be shipped out to their next stations. As Black expected, the team going to Polus 339 wouldn’t be staying overnight but rather were to be shipped out almost immediately.

Black, Lime, Brown, and Blue were shortly joined by Red, White, Yellow, and Tan. Others, they were told, would be joining the team later next month. That suggested his best chance of fulfilling his mission tasks were to get them done before the extra bodies joined the team. Black turned and gave a subtle nod of acknowledgment to the familiar faces of Red and White before looking to Yellow and Tan to size them up. He didn’t recognize them and it was apparent they didn’t know anyone else on the team either.

Neither Yellow nor Tan seemed particularly remarkable — looking the textbook image of the average MIRA Repair Corps engineer. In fact, they even looked so similar to each other in spite of clearly being at least ten years apart in age that Brown straight out asked if they were brothers. Yellow and Tan had exchanged incredulous glances with each other as if Brown had asked something ridiculous before denying it in the same flat tone and bland expression. The stereo response was uncanny enough to make the hair on the back of Black’s neck go up. He stepped closer to Lime as he watched the strange pair warily.

Sensing his movement, Lime looked up at him with a smile, his eyes curving into beautiful crescents. What Lime was thinking, Black couldn’t read, but Black very obediently followed Lime’s suggestion to join him, Brown, and Blue in a meal while they waited for their boarding call. Though Brown and Blue did most of the talking with Lime only inserting his own comments every so often, Black spent the next hour peacefully.

For the moment, he could put his mission out of his mind and just bask in Lime’s golden voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read through this chapter and thought to yourself, “Is is character meant to be [person]?” the answer is no! I am not writing RPF or fanfic about anyone’s online persona. I have seen a video of two Among Us streamers that I found cute. If similarities go beyond “Black is an initially intimidating character with a deep voice” and “there is a really cute and polite person he’s associated with” it is unintentional/coincidental. I just wanted to get that out of the way so people didn’t start to get frustrated with these characters not matching the personalities of various popular Among Us streamers… because they’re not them! Please don’t read too much into it. I just wanted to write a fic with a Strong One/Soft One dynamic.


	2. Dropship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime's POV of their meeting directly to dropship prep.

Lime automatically turned when he registered that someone new was arriving in the cafeteria. The figure was large, imposing, and dressed primarily in black. His broad shoulders looked like they could carry the world and his powerful frame made Lime think of a lion or a tiger. His thick hair was a dark grey and pulled into a messy knot at the back of his head. It was very clearly done just to get it out of the way, but it made him look artlessly attractive.

Automatically, Lime greeted the newcomer, flashing a practiced, friendly smile.

Whatever he’d expected from Black, it wasn’t being pinned by his forest green eyes as if he were being x-rayed and then a languid, cat-like glance away as he replied in a voice as deep as the grave. 

It made his stomach drop. 

It took all of Lime’s practiced cool not to show the blush that rose to his face, carried by all the little butterflies suddenly fluttering inside of him. Just what had the last few years of hard-won poise gone to, exactly?? It wasn’t fair! Black had swept it away in a few short words.

Thankfully Brown seemed similarly affected. Even Blue seemed a little caught off-guard — and _nothing_ seemed to ruffle Blue’s composure.

That made Lime feel a little better, at least.

Lime had to admire Black’s inner self-confidence. He’d simply joined them and patiently submitted to Brown’s enthusiasm, almost playfully shrugging it off. Raw envy rose within Lime. Why was Black so damn cool? It looked so _easy_ for him too! Lime always felt painfully awkward. After years of trying to develop it, people complimented him on his grace and easy-going nature, but underneath it he was still a big ball of anxiety. He was always afraid his mask was going to slip and people would see him for what he really was.

He immediately felt gratified to know that Black was stationed at Polus with himself and his friends. Telling himself “we may as well get to know each other starting now” and “it never hurts to make new friends and learn from them”, Lime did his best to keep the taller man nearby as if he could pick up his skills just by being near him. Thankfully, Black seemed perfectly content to let Lime lead him around MIRA 1-11 as they waited for their dropship launch. 

It never crossed his mind that Black hadn’t needed any convincing.

“Looks like you’ve been adopted, Lime,” Brown smirked as they all suited up in their bio-suits while they prepared to board the dropship. Making sure Lime knew who he meant, Brown’s eyes flicked to Black who stood just out of earshot, adjusting his own bio-suit straps.

“Adopted?” Lime echoed.

Brown laughed. “You didn’t notice? Black’s been acting like your shadow this whole time. I feel like he’s going to bite me if I get too close to you now. I should probably find out what sort of food he likes. Aren’t you supposed to feed guard dogs so they’ll like you?”

“…he’s not a dog,” Lime said absently. 

Brown responded only with a friendly smirk and the slightest lift of one of his expressive eyebrows. Lime frowned, looking from Brown to Black thoughtfully. Their eyes met across the width of the landing pad and for a moment it felt as if all the chaotic noise around them — the hissing vents, the low rumble of the dropship engines warming up, the chattering of roughly a dozen people suiting up and prepping the dropship, the bangs of machinery, the howls of the moon’s gas vents far below them — _all of it_ faded away and it was just the two of them.

After a moment, Black gave him a slow smile, followed by another one of his polite cat glances away. Lime liked cats. The thought that the larger man was wordlessly signaling he wasn’t a threat made his heart feel warm, so he looked back at Brown with his own smile.

“It’ll be fine. He seems friendly, doesn’t he? It’ll be good to have more friends at Polus, right?” he asked somewhat pointedly.

Brown just grinned and shrugged. “Sure! You know me. I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention to it, is all. I wouldn’t want you to be caught off-guard again.”

Lime did know Brown. Brown could make friends with a rock if he put his mind to it. He was almost aggressively friendly and positive and drew attention as easily as breathing on top of it. It was something that Lime admired in him. He’d learned a lot by studying how Brown acted around others and was perhaps his greatest model towards building his own brand of friendly charisma. It was just… not in Lime’s nature to be so high energy. He preferred a gentler approach. One that wasn’t as intense as Brown’s.

“Sure, I get it. Thanks,” he said gently. He did, after all, appreciate Brown making sure he was aware of Black’s apparent attachment to him. 

He felt a flutter of pleasure at having it pointed out that Black was already making the first steps of his own towards becoming friends. Almost as if to justify that feeling, he told himself he was just particularly happy he wouldn’t have to work hard to get to know Black and learn from him.

Recognizing that Lime was done with the conversation, Brown drifted off to try to get to know Yellow and Tan. If anyone was capable of cracking those two it’d be Brown. He might even manage it before the dropship launched. Lime couldn’t get a good read on either of them, so he left it to the expert. His eyes moved over Blue, Red, and White talking with each other and he briefly considered joining them so he could start to get to know the other pair of unfamiliar new crewmates. It was the correct thing to do.

Instead, his attention drifted back to Black.

Almost as if he sensed his attention, Black looked up to meet Lime’s gaze again. The two of them stared at each other as Lime dithered over whether or not to follow what he clearly wanted to do versus what he ought to be doing. After a moment, Black came over to join him, taking the decision out of his hands. 

“Want someone to check over your bio-suit?” Black asked, his deep voice pitched soft and low as if he were afraid he’d startle Lime if he spoke any louder. Instead of scaring him, all it did was send pleasant vibrations all through his nerves, making Lime feel jumpy again.

“Ah — uhm… Sure? If you don’t mind, I mean? Then I can check yours!” he offered, almost relieved to realize that there was a way to make himself feel less awkward about it.

Black uttered a soft chuckle that seemed… almost affectionate as he looked down at him. His dark green eyes caught the light and turned into a bright glass green. Lime felt like he was sinking in jungle quicksand at that combination of Black’s deep, dark voice and his magical green eyes. It made him feel breathless and enfolded in Black’s warmth. It was almost disorienting and he wasn’t really sure what to say or do, so he just stared up at Black, rather helplessly confused.

It came as a relief that Black didn’t appear to notice at all.

The taller man’s mesmerizing eyes drifted from his and down to his bio-suit, his expression turning somber and focused. Black very professionally went over every inch of the bio-suit, looking for rips, worn spots, or unacceptably ill-fitting areas. If Lime hadn’t worked on his body with as much care as he worked on his outer cool and friendly facade, he’d be incredibly self-conscious right now considering how fit Black was. Okay, he still was incredibly self-conscious, but at least it wasn’t over his general fitness level.

“You’re good,” Black said after a few minutes, rising to his full height again after having crouched to check the lower legs of Lime’s bio-suit. 

The focused expression was still in place. Lime felt a little surge in respect for Black at that. He liked that Black took it seriously. Bio-suits were a MIRA employee’s best defense against all sorts of hazards. Technology had also been incorporated into the suits that would help support the body to combat different atmosphere, gravity, temperature, and radiation changes, reduce work fatigue, and increase the amount one could lift without straining. Some suits — like the ones they were issued for this assignment — were even fit with chips that monitored vital signs. Bio-suits were literally life and death for the Repair Corps — even medics like him. And that was _without_ taking into account the way they interfaced with the dropships.

“Oh, thanks. Then that makes it my turn, right?”

Why did he ask that? _Obviously_ it was his turn! Lime forced himself not to wince or laugh at his own awkwardness while inside he was slowly dying from his own cringe-worthy question. He recalled Brown’s assurance that people were less likely to even notice something was silly or awkward if you didn’t overreact to it, so he refused to let so much as his eyelashes flutter.

There was another flash of Black’s gentle amusement; perhaps even affection, before his expression sobered again. “Sure.”

Suddenly nervous again, Lime took up the task. His embarrassment over asking the question was instantly forgotten in favor of now being weirdly more self-conscious going over Black’s bio-suit than he had felt when Black had looked his over. Lime forced himself to just focus on the fabric and joint supports as if there weren’t a person inside of the black bio-suit. It helped mitigate his nerves, but later he would remember touching areas without thinking to ask first if it were okay and writhe with mortification, realizing belatedly how much _closer_ he’d had to get to Black’s suit because the dark color would hide flaws more easily than his own bright green one would.

Thankfully, those thoughts didn’t occur to him until _much_ later, so when he finished, he smiled up at Black from where he was crouched on the ground in front of him. “I don’t think I missed anywhere. Sorry it took so long.”

Black’s gaze was averted and he murmured a simple, “I didn’t mind… I think it’s about time to go, though.”

Lime looked over in the same direction Black was looking to see Brown cheerfully explaining to Yellow about how to hook up the bio-suit into the dropship transport seating. 

“That’s why we were checking the suits so carefully,” Brown lectured. “The dropship will pump some sleep gas into our suits and we’ll just nap the whole flight. Best sleep you’ll have in your life! But yer fucked if you’re not getting a full dose of that sweet, sweet nap-time air. Had a guy who spent a whole two week flight half-awake thanks to a little tear in his suit letting out too much of the gas to keep him under, but not enough to let him move. Longest case of sleep-paralysis I’ve ever heard of — he had nightmares and hallucinations the whole time. He spent a week in Medbay, recovering. _Always check the suits before a flight!_ ”

Yellow looked terrorized while Tan just nodded firmly at every line Brown said. Even Lime felt a little uneasy at the reminder. 

Lime had helped treat the poor guy Brown was talking about. The man had hallucinated about one of the crewmates in the dropship unhooking himself from the chair and taunting him frequently — pulling open his bio-suit and having his torso split in half to reveal rows of sharp teeth and a prehensile tongue or tentacle that menaced him. That was the most frequent of the hallucinations he’d had the whole two weeks and it haunted even Lime.

“Not a fan…?” Black asked softly from over his shoulder. The low sound rumbled through Lime like a cat’s purr, comforting him. 

Lime smiled wryly. “That was my first time on the job as medic. Poor guy never really got over the nightmares…”

Black seemed to hesitate, his eyes going from where Brown and Tan talked the newbie Yellow through everything step-by-step, to the boarding crew clearly wrapping up, the rest of the Polus group taking their seats, and then back to Lime. “…if you want, I can hold your hand…? If it’d make you feel better, I mean.”

A faint blush rose to Lime’s skin in spite of himself and he awkwardly fiddled with his helmet. He hesitated a little himself. Honestly? He thought it probably _would_ make him feel better. But it would certainly look a little… sus.

“I’d like that,” he began honestly, trying to cool his blush as he looked down at his gloved hands. “But if someone decided to bring up the fraternization rules…” 

MIRA Inc had very strange rules to reduce fraternization between employees. The idea seemed to be that people with weaker relationships with each other were less likely to cover for each others’ mistakes and misdeeds. So you were supposed to associate enough during work and sanctioned gatherings to stave off feelings of isolation, but not enough to be willing to lie for each other. 

Everything boiled down to worker efficiency and productivity in the end with MIRA. Lime was pretty sure their policies were determined by artificial intelligence, rather than actual humans.

Black released a slow sigh that sounded heavier just by the sheer weight of his voice. “Yeah — you’re probably right. But…” Black’s dark green eyes held his for just a moment, lingering as if he were digging through all of his words to pick exactly the right ones. “…if you change your mind, the gas takes a little longer to work on me. I’ll still notice if you reach out for my hand.”

Touched, Lime smiled at the other man. “Yeah — sure. …thanks, Black.”

Forte arrived at the launch pad and began barking out orders for everyone to get in their seats and prepare for launch. Lime glanced at Black one last time before each in turn pulled their helmets on and checked the seal before taking their seats next to each other.

Minutes later, Lime turned in his dropship chair so he could see Black’s opaque helmet visor was already turned slightly towards him. In this lighting, from this angle, he couldn’t see inside the helmet, of course — but he could just _tell_ Black was looking at him and making sure he was okay. Lime couldn’t help but smile and lift his thumb in a silent reassurance. He was fine, really. Something about Black’s body language implied he’d smiled in reply.

The doors to the dropship passenger cabin closed and soon the whispering gas began filling their suits and swirling in delicate, barely visible clouds through the cabin space. Lime soon drifted off, imagining Black smiling gently while watching over him.


	3. Cold Realizations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black has too much time to think and I do some world-building.

While the dropship launched itself into space, Black watched as Lime dropped peacefully off into chemically-assisted sleep before briefly running his eyes over the others, making sure they weren’t having any issues either. 

Truthfully, with him not being human the gas didn’t really work very well. It wasn’t any more effective on him than a low dose of melatonin was. It provided conditions that made it _easier_ to fall asleep, but couldn’t force the issue and couldn’t keep him under. If he didn’t want to sleep, he didn’t have to. 

Of course, interstellar travel being what it was, he generally spent most of the time asleep like everyone else — or at least dozing off and on. The dropship seats were designed to recline and adjust their position at intervals to provide ideal conditions for sleep without risking negative health effects from staying in one position too long. Humans should have been too deeply asleep to notice the chair’s adjustments, but it invariably roused him even when he was trying to sleep.

Usually he’d have audiobooks and music playing from a playlist, letting him pass the time by doing something other than just staring off into the dropship compartment as he waited to drift off again. He’d learned several languages at the basic level that way by letting the instructional audio play on loop — something a lot of interstellar travelers swore by and didn’t mark him as unusual. Interstellar travelers were right up there with writers, voracious readers, and trivia fans for the amount of random knowledge they picked up over time. He had a course on the ancient language of Welsh all queued up and ready to go as it’d become a trend in the arts to use the dead language to write and perform in — a trend that had spread even back home. Apparently you missed out on a good bit of wordplay in the translations, so he was keen to add it to his collection of languages. 

But that was _before_ he'd heard Brown’s story about the sleep paralysis and seen Lime’s clear disquiet. As Black had every reason to know — those probably weren’t simple hallucinations brought on by not getting enough of the MIRA sleep gas.

The thought of Lime spending the week between HQ and Polus being menaced by an Impostor was something he wouldn’t be able to stomach. If it came down to it, he’d break his cover and protect Lime from being terrorized. Of course, being able to do so without outing himself was better if he could manage it… so he decided to skip the entertainment in favor of being able to hear any signs of an Impostor at work and wake up.

That meant he had plenty of time to think during his periods of wakefulness.

Black blushed again at the memories of himself and Lime examining each others’ bio-suits. It had been an unexpectedly intimate experience to check Lime’s suit to begin with, but he wasn’t prepared for the way his body was painfully aware of wherever Lime’s clear eyes were looking or where Lime’s graceful hands had touched him. Even though there were several layers of silk and synthetic material between Lime’s hands and his skin, he could almost swear he could feel tingles that followed Lime’s fingertips. The way his pulse skyrocketed when Lime had been kneeling to check the leggings of the bio-suit and then smiled up at him had felt positively dangerous. 

It was something that was forcing him to confront exactly what his reaction was to Lime.

His inhuman instincts had often called upon him to bond quickly with others. Ultimately it boiled down to a way to easily identify people he would work well with and would be able to trust if they also responded well to him. Red and White were two such, though not nearly to the degree that his reaction Lime had called to him. Considering how physically _aware_ he was of Lime, he was beginning to suspect his instincts had identified someone he was attracted to, not just had a simple connection with.

This was a terrible time and situation to seek out a lover in, however.

The first hurdle was probably the least important. MIRA regulations stipulated that “personal relationships” between employees working at the same site were forbidden. There were a few loopholes in that, but they wouldn’t apply to Black and Lime. It was a barrier that was quite frequently ignored in practice. Even most supervisors would turn a blind eye as long as it didn’t get in the way of productivity and no one flaunted it in front of them. But it was still a complication to keep in mind. Particularly considering Lime was too hesitant to even hold his hand when he was unnerved. Lime seemed like he’d take the rule pretty seriously.

More important to Black was that it wasn’t as if he could come clean about his own… circumstances. They were essentially on opposite sides after all. He was going to have to lie to Lime — possibly even to his face. Perhaps repeatedly. If things went particularly south, he might even have to leave without goodbyes. Or, worse, kill someone for the sake of the mission or to secure his and his partner’s safe escape.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Even if this mission went off without a hitch, Black wasn’t really in a position to offer Lime a relationship — and Black wasn’t really into flings. As long as they were attached to their respective jobs, either of them could be sent anywhere; reassigned at any time. He wouldn’t really be free to pursue a normal relationship until the entire operation was complete. It had already been under way for almost a decade and it could be years more before anyone saw the end of it. Worst of all, Lime might catch him in something compromising and decide to break off all contact with him entirely.

That was even assuming Lime was mutually interested, much less interested in the same sort of thing he was. Even if things were normal, you couldn’t guarantee that.

Black knew that — knew all of it. But it didn’t make the ache in his chest any better. They may have only spent six or eight hours together before boarding the dropship, but that was more than enough for his instincts and emotions to get all tangled together. He was rarely wrong when he had a strong feeling about someone, so he had no reason to doubt what he felt about Lime. But there were just so many reasons not to pursue those feelings.

He tried not to dwell on it as he floated in and out of consciousness, but without much else to distract him but Lime and his mission, his thoughts always returned to it eventually. It was a well-worn path by the end of the week. 

He was resolved.

He would leave these feelings well enough alone. He could just grab onto friendship with both hands.

ඞ。。。。。

  
Polus 339 was a hazardous dump considering how recently it had been abandoned. In a mere six weeks, it had taken on the neglected look and damage from the elements that more normal sites didn’t have until they’d been left mothballed for more than two or three years.

The research center was a cold collection of pre-fabricated buildings huddled together on a precarious cliffside, kept this-side of habitable because the original team had collapsed the roof of an active lava tube to provide radiant heat to the area. The thin layer of purple permafrost soil that sat atop the rock shelf that Polus 339 was built on wasn’t able to support more than a darker purple lichen growth that survived in spite of the harsh conditions. 

The site was pockmarked by small pits that seemed to connect to empty lava tubes below. They were most likely caused by the frequent tremors that shuddered through the area if the seismic stabilizers weren’t in operation. If the stabilizers went offline for too long it was likely that the whole place would come down around their ears as the rock shelf shook itself to pieces. Even some of the floors inside the buildings had cracked from the combination of temperature fluctuations and seismic stress and fallen into the sinkholes that formed beneath them.

The first week was spent just identifying and fixing major structural damage to the buildings and cordoning off what wasn’t necessary to immediately repair. This quickly put them behind schedule.

Because they couldn’t trust the stability of the buildings right away, when night began to fall they would all return to the dropship that was still parked on the landing pad. They slept either reclining in one of the dropship chairs or on cots on the floor, according to their individual preferences. Privacy was only given a token nod by way of leaving a few ‘walls’ of stacked crates within the open area of the dropship cabin, just to break up the space a little. No one had the energy to do more than that — not even bothering to locate partitions to use instead.

Every few hours someone was required to chart a fictional course and briefly fire up the dropship’s engines. The chilling air that gusted up the face of the cliff might otherwise freeze the engines dead. If that happened, they’d likely be stranded for a couple of weeks until they could get another landing pad set up. It was likely their dropship would stay where it was until they had the spare time to trek down the mountain to the dropship hangar set into the base of the cliff below them. Until they verified it was structurally safe and adequately heated to prevent damage to the dropship, there was no point in moving it. And _that_ trip would only happen if there was no blizzard forecast for at least a few days in a row. 

By the end of the first week, pretty much everyone was exhausted. It was looking more and more like that second team wouldn’t be able to show up and join them for longer than originally intended at the rate things were happening.

Nearly half of the crew reported issues sleeping, unnerved by the metal groans and cries of the pre-fab buildings and cargo crates that were disturbed by the howling wind. Some of them also suffered headaches from the gasses that sometimes vented out of the lava trench. Generally the constant winds whisked the foulness away before it was a real problem, but after a couple of reports HQ issued a strict helmets-on policy when outside of the buildings. 

Some days, when the winds were lighter, they wore them even inside — just in case.

While many of the crew were subtly demoralized by their extended stay in the dropship “dormitory” set-up, Black had to say that he had enjoyed being able to sleep within earshot of Lime. It was almost a disappointment when the buildings were finally secured and the two living quarters had finished being repaired. 

It did mean the luxury of private rooms — properly heated and sound-dampened, too! — but he and Lime were separated not just by separate rooms but also different locations. Lime was in one of the rooms above Admin to keep the crew’s medic closer to Medbay while Black, being an engineer, was in one of the rooms above the O2 complex and boiler room. The two buildings were only a short walk away from each other, but regardless it was a let down for him. He felt like a teenager being separated from his sweetheart for the first time. It was ridiculous, but it still an inescapable mood.

Black was sure everything was going to be fine, but after having had the ability to be near his crush near constantly since they introduced themselves to each other, the slight separation itched. 

Worse was that that now that all-hands were no longer necessary for structural checks and repair, the task lists HQ issued to them were almost always very different from each other. Being able to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Lime and spend some of that time chatting with one another made the hard work seem lighter. 

Seeing Lime’s sweet smile greet him whenever their eyes met always made the habitual furrow between his brows ease. A couple of the other crewmates had actively pushed the two of them to work together, in fact. Brown had joked that Black was less scary-looking when Lime was around. White had simply commented that Lime would be less at risk of injury if Black was looking out for him. These things were apparently something that the others all seemed to agree with once it was pointed out, so it’d never become an issue that Black had gravitated towards Lime’s side when he could.

If they’d had an official foreman on-site, he might have been able to use that line of reasoning to talk his way into a more convenient schedule — one that suited both his personal desires and also his secret mission. But for the moment, they were getting their orders from Forte back at Mira 1-11 in response to the daily reports everyone sent back to HQ, so it was a lot harder to overlap with Lime intentionally. 

At least mealtimes in the office and mandatory recreation time in Admin before bed meant they still got to spend some time with each other every day.

It never felt like quite enough. 

Especially since he had to share Lime’s attention with everyone else — Lime’s easy-going nature made him pretty popular. But it was plenty of time to tell Black that he was pretty much hopelessly in love with Lime. His resolve to do the right thing and leave it be was a thorn that constantly pricked him.


	4. Rockabye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lime tries _not_ to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that some people may appreciate a map of Polus so they can have a general idea of what the place looks like. You can find a map here: https://among-us.fandom.com/wiki/Polus_(map)

By the end of the first week, Lime was endlessly grateful that he’d greeted Black in the cafeteria and somehow effortlessly secured a new friend.

To begin with, it was obviously quite nice to have another good friend he could look forward to spending time with and learn from. Black was quiet, patient, easy-going, and quite interesting if you could get him to talk rather than just listen. Lime always felt extremely comfortable around him. 

Unless Lime embarrassed himself by saying something that seemed foolish in retrospect, he never felt anxious around Black. Rather, even when he _did_ blurt something out he wished he could take back, Black always managed to soothe and reassure him quickly and without fuss. Black even covered for him by distracting the others if Lime felt like he’d rambled too much around the group and started to stress himself out over it. 

Lime appreciated how Black always seem to have his back. It really helped him feel less anxious in general. Even Blue had remarked on it, commenting how relaxed Lime seemed recently.

Black was also super handy to have around for more practical reasons. He was tall, strong, and perfectly willing to help Lime do any number of physical tasks he might otherwise struggle with. The bio-suit enabled Lime to lift weights greater than he ever could without it, but with the back-breaking work they were doing during that first week setting up and repairing Polus 339, Lime would have really struggled without Black always being ready to step in and take over whenever he started to falter.

It was like having his own personal superhero at his beck and call!

That whimsical thought clearly got lodged somewhere in his brain. Which would have been perfectly fine if it had just _stayed_ there, but of course it slipped out one day. He should have known better, but…

It all happened the night they finished both of the upstairs floors where the residential halls were. The buildings were all secured, repaired, and beds and other furnishings were taken out of the cargo containers and set up in the rooms. After a week of sleeping in the dropship tucked away in a little maze of stacked crates, being constantly roused by the echoes of Tan’s symphony of snores and Red talking to his wife in his sleep — and _all_ noises amplified through the metal hull of the compartment — it was pretty much the best news they’d had since they arrived. 

Proper privacy! Heat-insulated rooms! More comfortable beds! Sound-dampening walls! Tan was getting the room at the end of the hall over the boiler room! Lime wasn’t even staying in the same building as Tan at all! 

Sweet release!

The technicians were all able to celebrate with Lime as they were likewise put in the residential hall above Admin. Though a technician, Blue joined the engineers as they consulted each other over whether or not the constant hum of the boiler room machinery was going to be a good source of white noise or if they were going to have to figure out other means of neutralizing Tan’s snores so the engineers could sleep. No one was entirely sure that the sound-dampening of the walls was enough to save them.

Tan took it all in stride considering five men were actually doing some sort of mathematical equations to theorize over the issue. He even joined in himself, apparently finding the mental challenge interesting in its own right. Lime would have died of mortification, so he had to admire Tan’s attitude. Or maybe Tan was just oblivious, but Lime was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

They were a long way from being ready to welcome the rest of the team — something that they had been made extremely aware of after a half hour lecture delivered by some bean-counter back at MIRA Corporate Headquarters — but everyone was in a great mood regardless. No one thought that Brown’s insistence they celebrate by cracking into their small store of alcoholic beverages was a bad way to mark the milestone. It wasn’t authorized by their local HQ, but no one questioned whether or not they should put in a petition and get official permission from Forte for it. Lime was probably the only one who had even _considered_ whether they should have or not and there was no way he was going to speak up against Brown’s enthusiasm or the rest of the group’s clear interest in having a few drinks.

So over dinner, they drank their single can of MIRA Brand Rec-Time Beer (marked as authorized for once-daily consumption provided supervisor permission was granted). Then in spite of the clearly printed warning on each can not to “get Recced” by drinking excessively, after everyone finished their meals Brown had lined up another three each on the table. Tan, Brown, and Blue ended up splitting off at various points to return with a bottle each from their private stashes — _not_ MIRA-issue alcoholic beverages, of course.

Lime, being a people-pleaser by nature, easily succumbed to peer pressure and downed not just his four beers, but also at least a sip of everything else offered to him.

As a result, most of the night was a blur.

Everyone quickly shed their work-day attitudes to a more casual version of themselves. Well - Brown was himself regardless of whether he were “on the clock” or not and Black was just as he always was as well: a quiet and supportive shadow. But everyone else seemed to unwind a bit more than usual. 

Tan stopped acting like a grizzled veteran and tried teaching everyone drinking songs he’d picked up in Sector 3. Yellow actually tried talking to people who weren’t Tan. Actually, once he started getting going, it was hard to get Yellow to shut up. Blue smiled more easily and actually chatted without making it into verbal chess. White’s expression was far more relaxed than the icy, uptight researcher vibe he usually had going on. When his platinum hair that was usually so carefully slicked back got mussed after a few drinks, he didn’t bother to repair the damage. Yellow clearly found it fascinating when White got frustrated with his glasses and pocketed them for the rest of the night. White was much more attractive than Lime had realized — his bone structure was striking when you could see it properly. Red was downright funny. He was naturally a clever guy who was quick with an off-the-cuff quip, but his joke about it being nice to “let his hair down” made everyone laugh… considering he was as bald as an egg. Lime remembered laughing a lot that night.

Of the things Lime could still recall later, the most clear activity was a drinking game involving a little white ball and cups, but he’d got frustrated and given up when they kept changing the rules on him whenever it was his turn. He was certain there was a movie on the big screen — one of the MIRA Studios films that had been left behind by one of the previous teams. The story was some sort of romantic comedy about a rich executive falling in love with an attractive college acquaintance of theirs they’d hired to manage their penthouse space station estate. Handfuls of stale-tasting popcorn ended up being thrown at the screen until someone protested about the amount of industrial butter that was going to have to be cleaned off of it in the morning.

At some point, he’d curled up on one of the cots that had been brought in from the dropship in place of couches or comfortable chairs and fallen asleep. He woke up when he felt himself being lifted by a pair of strong arms. The lights were out and from another room he could hear Brown loudly goading Blue by commenting on how much better Yellow was at some sort of game or skill challenge.

“Whuzzwrong?” Lime asked the dark figure settling him against their warm chest.

“Tonight’s the first night with beds — you shouldn’t sleep on a cot in the rec room.”

The deep voice rumbled through every bit of his body and Lime smiled, snuggling up against his transport. Even this drunk he knew who it was. “Oh. All right. We can go to bed now then.” He felt warm and safe and pleasant now. When Black chuckled, Lime couldn’t help laughing too, closing his eyes.

“We’re about to walk outside, so it’s going to get cold a minute, okay?” the other man murmured to him.

“’Sokay,” Lime said, letting his eyes stay closed, humming softly with pleasure. It was like sitting in one of those nice massage chairs. “You’re warm.”

“Am I?” Black asked, his tone so gentle and amused that Lime just laughed again because it made him feel happy.

There was a clicking sound and the noise of the nearby party got louder for a moment before there was another click and the party sounds became muffled again. Black stopped walking.

“Where are you going?” a voice asked. 

Lime wasn’t sure who it was as they didn’t speak very loudly, maybe worried he might wake up. It was familiar, though. Belatedly, Lime realized that of course it would be — he knew everyone who was supposed to be within about a thousand klicks of there. So he stayed relaxed and let his eyes stay closed. He’d be pretty happy to fall asleep feeling Black’s low voice tickle him.

“Taking him to his room,” Black said, his tone without inflection.

There was a pause and Lime thought he’d fallen asleep and missed the rest of the conversation, but a short time later the other person replied with, “Come back and join us again after you drop him off. Tan is going to hold a contest for that bottle of vodka.”

“Mmn,” Black seemed to confirm and began walking again. 

Lime heard the click and the party sounds again before they stepped outside and he woke a little to squeak at the sudden temperature shift that was apparent even with the bio-suit on. He practically wrapped himself around Black’s shoulders, causing the other man to chuckle and gently rub his back.

“Just a couple steps, okay?”

Lime made a sulky mewl of acknowledgment, but didn’t unwrap himself. Within a few steps, though, he heard the sound of boots hitting the metal stairs that lead to the personal quarters above the Admin building. Black juggled him with ease as he got the entry hall door open — no fancy automatic doors had been installed upstairs — and let them in. Before Lime really could account for it, he was being let into his own bedroom and settled down in bed. Black even patiently helped him out of his bio-suit, letting him crawl under the covers while still wearing his undershirt and bike pants.

After a few moments, a large hand came down to pet Lime’s hair as Black tried to talk him into drinking a bottle of water. It was so gentle and kind and Lime was so drunk he started crying. He distinctly remembered sobbing over being treated like a princess by a superhero, which was incredibly embarrassing to recall once sober. Thankfully, if Black ever teased him about it, it wasn’t one of the things he remembered. He just had the vague memories of agreeing to drink the water in return for Black singing him to sleep.

It was exceptionally nice.

And there’s absolutely no way he would ever dream of admitting he remembers it because of how mortifying the majority of the experience was. One day he wanted to figure out a way to get Black to sing for him again. It’s just… he wanted there to be plenty of time for Black to forget the first time first.

Lime did his best to forget the first time too, just so he wouldn’t self-combust with embarrassment every time he saw Black.

ඞ。。。。。

It hadn’t taken Lime long to figure out that White didn’t seem to like him.

The way his icy grey eyes stabbed at him from behind his glasses any time their gazes met had sent warning prickles up his spine. Lime was always extremely careful not to give people any reason to dislike him, so it bothered him immensely. Once he noticed White’s attitude he was on his best behavior around him, doing his utmost to soothe everyone to keep them from getting on White’s nerves and hopefully endear White to him. But that only seemed to make White despise him instead. 

It was honestly kind of disheartening.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Black had reassured him one day when Lime tentatively floated the idea to him while they walked from the Lab to Admin after a shift.

“But I think I must put him off somehow? Are you sure I’m not doing something to aggravate him? Maybe he thinks having a medic that’s not also an engineer or technician is kind of a dead weight and it’s why we’re so far behind schedule…” Lime tried not to beg for information, keeping his calm voice as perfectly modulated as he could, but he could tell there was an unusual stress attached to his tone.

“He doesn’t think that. No one thinks that about you.” Black stopped walking to look at him, so Lime stopped too.

After a glance around, Black pulled Lime behind the huge pile of boulders between them and the Admin building — out of sight of anyone who might pass. Once there, Black gently pushed him against the rock, blocking his view with his larger body and forcing him to look up and pay attention to him. 

Lime felt his heart skip before he was able to squelch the irrational reaction. Black was just making sure their private conversation was kept private was all — nothing else. It was silly to get nervous about it. Seeing him shiver, Black subtly adjusted his posture, leaning over him to help block the cold wind. The bio-suits were excellent and even specifically calibrated to deal with Polus’s wintry environment, but they couldn’t completely negate the chill of the sub-zero temperature winds if they hit you directly.

He couldn’t read Black’s expression — the dark visor on his helmet was down, as per regulation. Lime wished he knew what shade of green Black’s eyes were right now as he looked at him. He loved the glass green the most. Lime began to wonder why he had that odd thought when he was distracted by Black speaking.

“White is a hard man to get to know. That’s all. He’s… intensely private. He doesn’t make friends easily and… honestly? I think he’s wary of anyone who seems like they want to try. He knows he’s difficult.”

Black’s low voice rumbled through Lime’s body, making him feel breathless the same way music heavy with bass could. Memories of Black singing to him floated briefly to the surface. It took him a moment to put his thoughts together enough to respond. 

“I see. But you two seem to be friends?” Black nodded a little, adjusting himself so he leaned his forearm on the rock above Lime’s head. Their bodies weren’t close enough to justify it, but Lime still felt warmer. Another brief flash of a thought arced through Lime and was just as immediately discarded before he could examine it. He forced himself to continue with the conversation. “How long did it take you to become friends with him, then?”

There was a pause that from Black’s sudden stillness made Lime instantly feel awkward. Before Lime could try to take back the question, Black sheepishly responded.

“…not long.” There was an evasive tone to his deep voice that Lime was quick to pick up on.

“Oh, I see.” He winced behind his own visor, knowing how stiff he sounded. He tried to force a lightness into the next thing he said. “Well, that’s good then! You make friends easily, so I’m not surprised!”

“No - that’s… Ugh,” Black protested weakly, reaching a hand up to touch his own helmet as if he’d forgotten he was wearing it and was going to rub the back of his head. “The circumstances were… We went through basic training together. That sort of thing — the camaraderie, I mean — is hard to replicate, you know?”

Lime could tell that Black was flustered. “Basic training? Do you mean MIRA orientation?”

“…yeah,” Black said, his brief hesitation likely coming from being so eager to reassure him that he’d been confused by the question. “Look — it’s really nothing you’re doing wrong. It took Red something like six or eight months to stop getting glares from White every time they were in the same room together. And you know how friendly Red is.”

It took a second, but Lime nodded his agreement. Red was a nice guy. Very laid-back and quick with a friendly joke or intelligent observation. He was something like Brown, actually, in they were both people who seemed to abhor extended silence. They were always talking. Red even talked to himself if he was left in a room alone for too long, playfully making everything he did into some sort of competition with himself. 

Come to think of it, even Brown was struggling with making friends with White.

“Just think of him as something like a cat,” Black continued. “He needs some time to get used to you before he’ll be comfortable even trying to be your friend. And you have an advantage over some of the others. You’re quiet and soothing to be around. White struggles with people who are noisy and hyperactive.”

From Black’s tone, Lime could tell he was smiling, so Lime smiled too, relaxing a little. What Black was saying made sense. “Ah… That… helps a lot, actually. Thanks.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Black gently dipped down to lightly butt their helmets together in a friendly gesture that made Lime laugh affectionately. He felt warmth well up inside of him again. Black could be very…

“So, dinner?” Lime asked, ruthlessly cutting off that train of thought.

He felt keenly that whatever it was would disrupt the balance between them. He couldn’t bear risk that.


	5. Alcohol and Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surely you wanted to have Black's take on the party too, right?

Black was deep into working on the water wheels in the boiler room. They’d broken down for the third time in as many days. By now, repairing them was almost routine, so he let his thoughts wander back to a few nights before, to the group’s first party.

。。。

“No more for Lime,” Black had said once it was clear that Lime had both had too much to drink and was getting frustrated with beer pong, but wasn’t going to say anything himself. 

Black didn’t raise his voice or stress anything unduly, but the others had looked at him and simply obeyed what was clearly an order. They withdrew the alcoholic drinks they’d been trying to get Lime to try by way of setting him up to lose at the game. It was all meant in good fun, but Lime didn’t seem like he was having fun anymore himself.

Lime didn’t protest at all and instead mumbled something that seemed like an agreement, though Black wasn’t entirely certain Lime understood what was going on. That seemed to be enough for the others to have got the same idea, so there was no awkwardness over Black asserting authority in Lime’s place. 

The group returned to their conversations and finally agreed on one of the movies that had been left behind after the previous team had evacuated Polus 339. The whole watch party idea had come about because a package of popcorn had been found in the break room cabinet. Red was pretty sure was going to taste like crap after checking the use-by date, but Brown and Yellow wanted to take the gamble on it, “Because why bother to watch a movie if you don’t have popcorn?”

Their first night having a proper party together and unwinding had gone pretty well. 

Everyone was having a good time and no one seemed to be a belligerent drunk. At least, no more so than they were day-to-day. Brown was a little pushy with his intentions of keeping things high energy, calling for a change in activity any time the vibe seemed to shift. White was nearly his opposite — fairly quiet and almost sullen. Yellow was about three times more interested in what everyone was doing than normal and as such seemed to keep getting under everyone’s feet — but it was manageable.

After following everyone to the rec room to watch the movie on the big screen over the admin table, Lime was leaning on Black’s shoulder, his face flushed and his eyelashes drooping. 

All Black really wanted to do was get Lime to bed so he could sleep it off, but he knew it was early enough that people would make comments, if not a fuss, over it. And that might even include Lime. Black was pretty sure that of the group, Lime might end up the most belligerent drunk if he got the bit between his teeth for something, so Black was careful to monitor Lime and make sure he was enjoying himself.

Though Black enjoyed Lime leaning on him and making savage, sleepy comments about the plot and characters in the movie, it was a relief when the awful rom-com was abandoned in disgust. Everyone relocated to the break room to play more beer pong — though this time it was for snacks rather than more alcohol. No one wanted to be too hung over the next day. 

Black had left Lime to clean up the popcorn on the floor since he’d seemed to set his heart on it. He would have stayed to help if Lime hadn’t looked rebellious over it, insisting it was his job. It was cute, so Black let him have his way. But when Lime didn’t follow them after ten minutes or so, Black went back to find Lime curled up on a cot, snoring sweetly away.

He’d been tempted to bring Lime back to his room, rather than Lime’s — for purely chaste observation. 

He knew better. He knew that there were crewmates who’d already had their suspicions about his interest and _they_ would know better too. It wouldn’t be fair to Lime for him to wake up in bed with someone after a drunken night, even if the most that would have happened was cuddling in his sleep. Who knew what everyone else would believe, though? It wasn’t nice to put Lime in a position of dealing with that kind of speculation. So Black reined in his wishes and proceeded to properly return Lime to his room. 

Perhaps it was good he’d already decided to do that because when he was confronted in the hall on the way out, he was able to meet their sharp, suspicious gaze with no trace of guilt in his own expression.

The only thing he did that could really be considered sus was when he helped Lime out of his bio-suit, he’d intentionally let Lime’s undershirt ride up so he could get a good look at his toned chest and stomach. He was tempted to trace his fingers over that smooth, flawless skin — but he knew that was crossing the line. After letting his eyes linger a little longer than they should have — prompting Lime to whine about being cold — he tugged the shirt back down and smiled at Lime’s sleepy grumbles as he crawled under the blankets.

Lime was just drunk enough to let down all of his walls and show the soft, cute person he kept protected behind that pleasant mask, without being so drunk that he actually needed to be looked after. Black stayed with him awhile anyway, petting Lime’s hair, coaxing him to drink water, and even singing gently to him until Lime slept. 

A little after Lime drifted off, Black returned to the party as dictated.

Several pairs of eyes gave him considering looks, subtly or boldly looking him over for signs of anything happening beyond chastely looking after a drunken crewmate. Black gave them blank stares in return until one by one they returned to their games. 

The party didn’t last much longer, so Black was able to head off to his own room and remember just how adorable Lime had been. He smiled, remembering the cute and clumsy words he was sure Lime would be far too shy to say sober. He stored them away, little stolen treasures in his heart.

ඞ。。。。。

It soon became clear to Black that due to his behavior with Lime — perhaps instigated by what had happened during the party or maybe just as a distraction — he was an object of curiosity to the others in the group. Their attention was especially pronounced if he were around Lime, which of course Black wanted to be as much as possible… and managed less than he’d like.

He honestly didn’t care too much about being observed when he was with Lime. It wasn’t as if things would — or could — get to the point where privacy would be preferred. Though it wasn’t truly fair to Lime, it would satisfy the selfish part of him if others didn’t pursue anything but friendship with the gentle guy in the lime-colored bio-suit because they thought the two of them were a thing. 

But it sure as hell made his _mission_ more difficult. 

Black felt like any time he made a move outside of his normal pathing through the Polus compound, everyone kept a side-eye on him to see if he were trying to meet up with Lime. Presumably for a secret tryst.

The only times he could do anything that took him along an unusual route without everyone paying attention to what he was doing was to time it with something that either fell into natural gaps in the schedule or broke it entirely. That meant the best times were just before or after a meal, when they were called to a meeting, or when an emergency repair sent them all scrambling.

He’d even been tempted to sabotage the lights himself to give himself opportunities to work, though he refrained because everyone was already on-edge as it was. 

Forte back at their local HQ was understanding, but Corporate only saw the days stack up without either an empty launch pad or a secondary landing site cleared and refused to take into account either the poor weather or the constant equipment break-downs as explanations. There were veiled threats that had started to be made recently about how it “wasn’t going to look good on your records” that some of the crew were taking harder than others. 

It was a mess, so no wonder he and Lime were being treated like a live theatre telenovela, in spite of the snail’s pace their ‘story’ was moving at. It was a distraction — something that kept everyone from thinking about the word everyone, even Corporate, was avoiding: 

Impostor.

His partner snidely remarked that if Black drew everyone’s attention that made _his_ job easier, but framed it in such a way it was clearly also at least partially an expression of irritation for drawing attention at all. 

It wasn’t like it was unfair for his partner to feel that way either. It was unusual and completely his fault. Usually after the week or so of intense interest from the crewmates that were drawn to his voice or afraid of his intimidating atmosphere, Black managed to fade into the background. Barring those who were infatuated with him, at least. There were other means of discouraging _that_ behavior. 

Who knew that for once the shoe would be on the other foot and Black would be pining after someone who treated pretty much everyone with the same gentle friendliness? And that his attachment to that person would draw everyone’s eyes to him? It was almost embarrassing, except Black couldn’t bring himself to do anything but his best to spend more time with Lime, even if that was as far as he could go with those inconvenient, hopeless feelings of his.

The one who was the most closely following every step of their time together had to be Blue. 

It wasn’t exactly surprising, either. Blue was one of Lime’s dearest friends. Since he was a technician, the two stayed in the same dorm hall and was as a result around Lime far more often than Black could be. Blue was observant, quick-witted, and sharp-tongued. His dry comments had more than once surprised Black and his watchful dark eyes clearly caught more than he spoke about. 

Black actually liked him quite a lot, though he hoped never to get on the man’s bad side. 

Though Blue used his devil-may-care attitude to keep Lime — and everyone else — at something of a distance, it was obvious to Black that Blue felt just as protective over Lime as Black did. Maybe one day the two of them would have to have a talk, but he doubted it would amount to much. Black _couldn’t_ lay all of his cards on the table and Blue seemed like the type of guy who jealously guarded his own.

For someone as observant as Blue it had to be clear what Black’s feelings towards Lime ultimately were. That Blue hadn’t taken him aside to warn him off probably meant he’d passed some sort of test. As long as the balance between them didn’t change, he thought Blue would let him pine after Lime without interfering — neither helping nor hindering. That was good enough for Black.

Brown was something different entirely. 

As Lime’s other close friend in the crew, Brown was constantly around as well. Because Lime took to Black, Brown seemed to have accepted him into the friend group as a matter of course. That friendship apparently came paired with an awful lot of casual physical contact and strings of questions that presumably went from thought to spoken aloud in an instant; tossed in Black’s direction without concern of whether they were appropriate to ask. Black just followed Blue’s lead there. When he couldn’t distract Brown with a new subject, he’d just bluntly say he didn’t want to talk about it. Thankfully Brown was quick to back off without any sign of resentment when he got push-back. He’d just laugh and agreeably change the subject, saying he just wanted to hear “more of that smooth, buttery voice” of Black’s.

Black never noticed any signs of anything directing Brown’s actions but a desire to keep everyones’ spirits high and banish uncomfortable silences, but he also knew that he wasn’t as simple as he appeared either. He’d noticed how much Blue watched Brown, which lead to him catching on that Brown always seemed to zero in on the person in the room whose mood was the most sour. He was quite willing to bet that the guy was sharper than he let on. 

Brown certainly played the fool to keep the mood light, but Black knew that that the foolish didn’t last long working for the MIRA Repair Corps. Cheerful idiots usually broke within about six months when the existential horror that was the harsh work environment inevitably crushed them. And since Lime had mentioned working with Brown for three years, it followed he wasn’t a fool.

Yellow and Tan were the most annoying about their observations. 

Tan seemed to be a gossip hound and because Yellow was a newbie who clearly felt more of a kinship with Tan than anyone else, Yellow followed his lead. Any time Black and Lime were together, there were a lot of smirks and elbows flying back and forth between Tan and Yellow, like they were snickering teenage boys rather than grown men.

The only thing they had going for them was they were so obvious about it that they were actually the easiest to just roll his eyes about and ignore. The pair themselves clearly didn’t think about it any more seriously than as something to pass the time with. They had no intentions of interfering; no interest in quizzing them about “the deets” of what was going on. They just watched on the sidelines and speculated with each other in private about whatever they’d seen — they didn’t even care enough to gossip about it with any of the other crewmates.

According to Black’s partner, who’d overheard them spilling the tea in Electrical recently, Yellow was convinced that Black and Lime were already sneaking into each others’ beds when no one was looking. Tan, on the other hand, was certain Black was going to fight Brown for Lime’s hand one day and nothing had actually happened between them except _maybe_ some drunken making out.

Black wished.

Well, whatever kept those two sane, he supposed. Stars help them all the moment someone here snapped. “The shit hit the fan” wouldn’t even begin to cover it.

To their credit, Red and White had only brought up the situation between Black and Lime once each before letting it drop. They knew Black well enough that provoking him by taking it too far just wasn’t on their to-do list. Both very clearly thought it was both hilarious and a little pathetic, though they wisely didn’t voice those sentiments.

Predictably — perhaps thankfully — the person who had the least idea of the drama going on behind the scenes was Lime himself. If Black had been able to pursue him, he’d have been incredibly frustrated. As it was, he at least was glad it meant Lime wasn’t acting awkwardly around him.

Small favors.


	6. Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime picks up on all the wrong cues.

Though Lime never pretended he was the most observant person in the world, it wasn’t like he was blind either. He was well aware that _something_ was going on that no one was cluing him in on. 

He knew everyone was under a terrible amount of pressure thanks to Corporate breathing down their necks, but they talked about _that_ openly. It didn’t seem to be the reason everyone had strange expressions or watched everyone out of the corners of their eyes. It was honestly making him edgy and unable to focus. It was like he constantly had someone watching whatever he did. He was sure the idea people were watching him in particular was just his imagination… but people were behaving oddly recently.

White continued to give him cold stares — when he bothered to give him a second glance at all. That part wasn’t ‘odd’, but what was odd was how often those frosty looks would take on an air of exasperation, as if he were unforgivably dense. They made him feel so nervous around White that he did his best not to speak around him at all.

Yellow and Tan were constantly smirking and elbowing each other while exchanging exaggerated looks. Sometimes Lime caught them mouthing something that someone had said as if savoring the words and finding them delightful or extraordinary.

Blue picked fights with Brown more often than usual, apparently as a way to give vent to whatever was going on that he was trying to keep his mouth shut about around Lime. He seemed to do an awful lot of interrupting Brown recently too, which was usually the thing that provoked the fights to begin with.

Brown, for his part, enjoyed the chaos as always. For someone who acted as the crew’s mood-maker, he always found a sort of weird joy in antagonizing his friends. The closer they were, the more pleasure he seemed to take out of it.

When Red didn’t have his head down with a markedly greater focus on his work, he was cracking jokes even more frequently than usual — often apropos of nothing. To Lime it seemed like Red was trying to find a way to break the unspoken tension.

Only Black seemed to give him a sense that everything was calm and normal between them.

If anything, that worried Lime the most. He couldn’t even pinpoint why, exactly. Maybe it was just the idea that he knew Black wasn’t oblivious to what was going on around them either. Which meant Black had some idea at least of what was going on, but was keeping it from him. 

It wasn’t that Lime didn’t appreciate the way Black was clearly trying to look out for him, though. He actually liked that — it made him feel warm inside to have made such a kind and considerate friend. Black didn’t pry like Brown or tease like Blue. Lime just worried that maybe Black had taken it upon himself to keep everyone else from cluing Lime in to protect his feelings. So he was the only one who _didn’t_ know.

Maybe it was just paranoia, though.

Paranoia was a fairly normal reaction to stress and isolation, after all. And he was fully aware that with his shaky self-confidence and the work stress he was under that he was a prime candidate for it. He should man up and just ask someone about it. Clear the air. Express his feelings.

Yeah.

He should.

He really, really should.

Sometime, maybe he would.

ඞ。。。。。

“If you have a minute…”

“Mmmn.”

“Just listen, will you?”

“Sure.”

Lime looked up from where he was working at the terminal in Medbay as voices from the adjoining Lab floated his direction. Identifying Black’s voice was easy. It was too distinct not to be him even if Lime could just barely understand what he said. He was pretty sure the other was White. From the sound of it, they didn’t realize he was there and because they kept their voices quiet, he wasn’t sure he should announce his presence for fear they’d think he was snooping on them. 

He hesitated… before deciding to snoop. If he kept his eyes on the terminal screen he could feign that he was completely absorbed in what he was reading and hadn’t overheard. To be fair, it wasn’t like he could hear them very well. His ears strained.

“You really need… be careful,” White(?) said. There was a grunt from Black in reply. “— is watching us closely.” There were a few sounds in a row that were unintelligible. “-ard to do anything.”

“…take our time,” Black rumbled back, the high clink of glass made it sound as if he were probably adding vials to the sample analyzer.

“— don’t _have_ much time,” White(?) argued impatiently. An unintelligible rumble from Black. “Fine, but —” There was a few moments of sibilant hissing that Lime assumed was either another language or a very furious whisper. It ended with, “—can distract if…”

“Enough. Doors,” Black replied, his deep voice a little terse.

From the distant chunking sound followed by a faint hydraulic hiss, Lime realized Black must have heard someone flicking the door switches down the hall. That made him keep very still indeed for fear Black would notice he was there. He had no idea Black’s hearing was that good!

“You should stay away from him.” White’s voice was so firm that it was easier to identify it that time. Each word was so clear and vehemence burned each word into Lime’s ears.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Black replied in a similar, tense tone.

They went quiet after that until Tan wandered in and chatted with them for a bit. Lime trained his eyes on the terminal screen and let his mind try to piece what he’d heard together into a coherent whole. Who had they been talking about? And what were they doing that wasn’t supposed to be noticed?

He was so deep into his own thoughts that he didn’t need to fake a shriek of surprise when a face interposed itself between him and the screen. “Sweet Puck!” Lime cried out, nearly falling out of his seat in shock.

Brown brayed a laugh, his head thrown back and his hands clutching at his own bio-suit. He laughed for almost half a minute, ending up wheezing as he leaned against the Medbay scanner for support. Lime grumbled with embarrassment, shifting in his seat and trying not to scowl.

“Just say ‘fuck’,” Brown said after he’d recovered some, still grinning his usual open-mouthed grin. “It’s not illegal! No boss around breathing down your neck, so it ain’t unprofessional either. You’re an adult and no one’s going to say you can’t! Try it! Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. FUUUUUUU~CK! Now you.”

“What in heavens is wrong with you?” Lime sulked, ignoring Brown’s suggestion entirely.

“Just saaaaaay it. …you _know_ you want to…” Brown coaxed, his tone turning tempting as if he were some mischievous devil offering Lime riches for his soul. 

Lime rolled his eyes at his friend. He was honestly never entirely certain if Brown were actually trying to convince him to use foul language or if he just enjoyed teasing him, knowing that Lime preferred to keep his language clean if possible. Sometimes Brown was like the pet that would knock something off a table just because he could.

“I _don’t_ want to. Puck is a Shakespeare reference and—” He broke off, realizing that he’d just set Brown off to laughing again and he wasn’t listening at all. “…Now I’ve lost my place in what I was reading.” He added the complaint almost belatedly, remembering that Black and White might still be in the room and he’d need to establish how focused he’d been.

Brown just chuckled, moving closer to lean obnoxiously on his shoulder. His white hair brushing against Lime’s cheek really sealed the whole ‘annoying brother’ vibe he was giving off; the stiff spikes prickled irritatingly at his skin.

“What are you so jumpy about anyway?” Brown asked, reaching up to poke his cheek now that he’d stopped laughing at Lime.

“Don’t worry, Lime — they left as Brown arrived. They didn’t notice you, I don’t think.” 

The mellow voice belonged to Blue who quietly joined them in the back in Medbay. His dark eyes flicked to the screen before looking to Brown and Lime. A light chill that suggested he’d been outside for quite awhile rolled off of him as he tucked his wavy blue hair behind one of his ears, his helmet under one arm.

Brown flashed a grin and lifted his head from Lime’s shoulder, so Lime used that as an excuse to push his annoying friend further away. The other man took the hint and released Lime to stand up and look at the newcomer.

“And where were _you_ , then?” Lime asked, blinking up at Blue with bemusement. The Lab was really busy today, huh?

“Smoking on the balcony,” Blue said with a languid shrug, not meeting his eyes.

“Blue… you _know_ that’s against regulations,” Lime said with a frown. “It’s also bad for your health.”

The blue-haired man returned his dark gaze to Lime’s and gave him a rather self-satisfied smirk. “Indeed. But one must do what one can to keep oneself entertained on this blasted purple hellscape.”

“ _Blue!_ ” Brown exclaimed with mock-censure. “You bad boy!” If anything, he sounded absolutely delighted.

Blue’s lips twisted into another smirk, this one just a little bitter. “Brown, my good fellow, you have _no idea_.”

The two stared at each other, Brown grinning and Blue smirking — but there was a tension between them that you could cut with a knife. Lime couldn’t figure out what it was. They were just like that with each other sometimes. Some sort of competitiveness, maybe? That or they were attracted to each other, but it didn’t seem to match how either of them pursued people they were interested in, so Lime wasn’t sure.

“Well… Do _you_ know, Blue? What they were talking about, I mean.” Lime asked, trying to break up whatever it was before they started taking pot shots at each other. That’s what usually happened before long when they got all… weird-vibes with one another. And, of course, he just really wanted to know what Black and White were talking about. “I can’t figure it out. I probably didn’t hear enough.”

Blue hesitated, tearing his eyes away from Brown’s as he frowned thoughtfully and hooded his gaze to his usual lazy expression. “Mmn… I have my suspicions about _who_ they were speaking of, but your guess is as good as mine as to why they were concerned about it.”

“Who do you-” Lime began to ask.

“Maybe they’re fucking on the down low,” Brown interrupted with a shrug.

Both Lime and Blue looked over at Brown. Lime was shocked and Blue actually hissed at him as he glared. “Shut _up_ , you bloody idiot. If you don’t have something _useful_ to contribute, at least don’t muck things up!”

The two proceeded to squabble — something that Brown was clearly enjoying and Blue just as clearly wasn’t. Lime tuned them out, having lost the will to mediate for them. He felt oddly hurt by this hypothesis, which was something that was so ridiculous he decided to ignore it because he was probably misidentifying the emotion.

What if that was it? Black and White were a couple. Didn’t it… make sense?

White wasn’t exactly close to anyone in the crew aside from Black. He seemed to tolerate Red through pure familiarity and didn’t actively antagonize anyone, but Black was the only one you could really call his _friend_ , no matter how much Black tried to suggest Red was also included in that number. Black was also pretty gentle with White, wasn’t he? For someone who didn’t usually talk much, Black still did his best to smooth the way between White and anyone else. 

And the conversation fit for that, didn’t it? They were trying to find time together and just couldn’t slip off without attracting attention to themselves. That was all it was. 

Occam's razor.

Come to think of it, the pair of them looked good together. They contrasted with each other — each matching well with their assigned color designation. Black was dark and warm with a strong, heroic build and White was fair and cool with platinum hair and a lithe body. They worked so well together, neither really having to speak to do their tasks without getting each others’ way — like dancers who had years of practice as each others’ partner. Yin and yang.

It was… so _obvious_ now that he thought about it.

Was White always glaring at him because he spent too much time with Black and he was jealous? Perhaps he had been spending too much time with Black when he thought about it. Lime enjoyed Black’s company and it seemed like Black didn’t mind it. Plus Lime still wanted to learn all sorts of things from Black. Black’s easy-going confidence still made him feel super comfortable and warm. He’d like to learn that from him if he could. It would be good to make others feel the way Black made him feel. 

But… If Black and White were seeing each other, then he’d been pretty selfish taking up so much of Black’s free time, hadn’t he? 

If they’d just _said_ something, of course he wouldn’t have got in the way! Of course not! He was super happy for Black, really! He couldn’t help how oblivious he was about that sort of thing. But… really, Black was _so nice_ , so of course he wouldn’t say anything to him. And he might have asked White not to bring it up so Lime’s feelings wouldn’t get hurt.

Maybe _that_ was the big secret everyone seemed to be aware of? 

Well, with fraternization rules, no wonder no one wanted to talk about it. Corporate was breathing down everyone’s necks right now. It would be so easy to use their relationship to make an example of them and make the rest work hard so they wouldn’t risk being next on the chopping block. Everyone here was starting to get pretty close now, so no one would want anything bad to happen to anyone else. It made sense not even to mention it to your friends…

Lime sighed. 

If Black and White weren’t going to say anything to him, then he’d just take matters into his own hands.

Simple.


	7. Terminals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black works on his mission and has a very important conversation.

It had been nearly a week since the last time he’d really spent any time with Lime and Black was attempting not to go out of his mind trying to figure out exactly what he’d done wrong.

If he couldn’t pursue his feelings for Lime, then he at least wanted to be good friends with him. To protect him, even if it didn’t seem necessary at the moment. But recently every time he tried to spend time with Lime, or even just get close enough to talk while they worked, Lime would find an excuse to leave. At work the excuses he made would pretty much make sense — having forgotten some samples processing back in the lab or being called away to run health checks on someone who got a lungful of the gasses venting from the lava trench. But during downtime, it eventually became obvious that there was something more intentional behind it rather than a series of coincidences.

He decided he must have made a mistake somewhere… but with Lime avoiding him, he couldn’t ask him about it to clear things up. Black assumed he must have violated one of those strange unspoken lines humans had. 

Whatever it was, he wasn’t exactly sure whether Lime had spoken about it with his closer friends. 

Brown seemed just as cheerful and friendly as ever. Plenty of times over the last few days they’d been alone together while working and nothing came up. No strange glances or awkward pauses either. He felt like Brown would be the sort to bluntly launch right into it if there was anything on his mind. Instead, when it wasn’t about the tasks they were working on, Brown was gung-ho about chatting about their interests.

Blue, on the other hand, kept looking over as if he were considering whether or not to talk to him. Bearing in mind that Blue had a rather acidic tongue, Black didn’t think Blue would hold back if he knew there was something he’d done wrong to offend Lime. Though that said, Blue also seemed like the type who would keep something close to the vest without hesitation provided it seemed like the better choice. Assuming Blue did actually want to speak to him about something, there was every chance whatever he wanted to talk about could have nothing at all to do with Lime. Especially considering that of the two, Black would assume Lime would talk things over with Brown rather than Blue if he only talked to one of them. Brown and Lime seemed the closest of the three… 

While he turned these somewhat hopeless and contradictory thoughts over in his head, Black was currently proceeding with his mission. 

He had waited until the end of the shift when everyone was filtering into the Admin building for mandatory recreation time to slip into Medbay and download the data that had been collected within the terminal. 

From earlier snooping while tampering with it, he and his partner were pretty sure it contained not just data from when they arrived, but also all of the information that had been collected in at least the last four years — perhaps as much as a full decade if the terminal hadn’t been wiped when it was refurbished and brought to Polus 339. Black had volunteered to do the data collection, knowing of the two of them, it was better if he took the risks associated with being seen.

It had seemed so unlikely.

Black’s ears were good — better than almost any human’s hearing — but he was still caught off guard when he detected movement out of the corner of his eye and saw an equally surprised Lime standing there. They both froze, staring at each other for a heart-stopping moment.

The terminal screen clearly said DOWNLOADING… Though he had an excuse prepared, there was really no reason why an engineer like him should be messing with the terminal at all, much less _downloading_ anything. That was a technician’s job if it were necessary. He also hated the idea of lying to Lime, even if he understood he _had_ to.

They continued to stare at each other for another tension-filled few seconds before Lime’s surprised blue eyes pulled away from his to look at the terminal, then the device that Black had attached to it, and finally back to Black’s eyes. 

Black felt himself hold his breath as Lime’s lips parted slowly, forming ever so carefully around his first words.

“…Today… more of the crates in Storage were gone through to determine what should be kept or trashed. Tan found a supply of dehydrated fruit snack bars that would pass their sell-by date in a month or so. Brown and Red came up with the idea of a trivia night with the snacks for prizes… You should come join us before they get started.” 

Lime’s usual polite smile was on his face, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes — just as it hadn’t in about a week. The tone of that golden voice he loved so much was as cool and friendly as ever — the impersonal receptionist friendly, that was. None of the inner layer of warmth Black had grown used to hearing when Lime spoke to him. He was being treated just like any of the others. As if nothing were unusual at all.

With one last glance at the device, Lime left without waiting for a response.

Black continued to hold his breath as he heard Lime’s footsteps echo through the length of the lab. He heard the slight scuff of his boots on the wood of the entryway as he turned at the door; perhaps hesitating slightly before he exited into the hall. Black’s breath was _still_ held as he heard the more hollow sound of the footfalls in the hallway until the eventual clicking noise of Lime disengaging the door switches, the metal chunking of the door retracting, and the final hiss of hydraulics as he left.

He didn’t release his breath until the machine beeped beside him, notifying him that the data had been collected. “TRANSMISSION BEGUN. DO NOT DEACTIVATE THE DEVICE OR DATA MAY BE LOST OR CORRUPTED DURING UPLOAD.”

Black swallowed, pocketed the device, and put the terminal back into standby mode. 

His heart was pounding. There was no way to tell what Lime was making of what he’d just walked in on. There was no way he hadn’t noticed Black was doing something shady. Those clear-eyed glances had focused on every piece of evidence he needed to put one and one together — assuming he’d even needed evidence. Lime was the medic, so he likely knew exactly how much information was lingering in the terminal. He may have even had a better idea than Black how it could be used.

If Lime said anything to anyone, there was no way Black would be able to worm his way out of this. Lime was the _last_ person whose testimony could be twisted into his favor. As the medic, he would naturally understand the terminal better than anyone else and likely had been briefed over what constituted reportable behavior regarding it. Plus he was pretty well known for his honesty and rule-following behavior — only White seemed to find him remotely suspicious. If Lime said he saw something, Black couldn’t imagine anyone would doubt him.

The smart play would be to neutralize Lime. If he couldn’t sway him to keep quiet, then SOP would be to do so through… other means. 

There was no way Black could bring himself to do that to Lime, of course. He couldn’t even get him alone to talk about their personal relationship for fear of stressing him out, so how could he bear to intimidate him… or worse?

No.

Black closed his eyes and took a slow, calming breath before leaving the lab complex and heading towards the admin building as if nothing had happened. If he could talk to Lime before Lime said something to someone else, he would. Otherwise, he’d play it off as if nothing had happened. If Lime hesitated for long enough, Black might just be able to wriggle through unscathed by planting doubt about what Lime had seen or when he’d seen it.

He needed to tell his partner — but it wasn’t smart to do it immediately. Black didn’t want to put him at risk by leading others right to him. That was the entire reason _he’d_ been the one to do the download, after all.

All he could do was play it by ear.

ඞ。。。。。

Black won twelve packs of the surprisingly delicious dried fruit bars that night. 

Red and White eventually agreed to tie for first with thirty-one packs and Blue wasn’t that far behind at twenty-five. Yellow, Tan, and Brown brought up the rear with ten packs each. Lime insisted on taking the role of quizmaster, earning him his own ten packs. 

Everyone decided to leave the remainders in the office break room cabinets for communal snacks rather than risk going up against Red and White again. Both men were surprisingly aggressive over pursuit of first place and no one else wanted to fight as hard as they did for the win. Black thought the two had a great deal of fun, at least. Besides — just as Blue had pointed out when it was clear Red and White were itching to go again, if Red and White kept winning, they’d make themselves sick trying to eat their prizes before the marked expiration date.

Nothing came of Black getting caught out by Lime at the Medbay terminal that night.

Another several days passed and _still_ nothing happened. Black wasn’t able to get Lime alone to talk either. Lime was by this point barely managing to pretend he wasn’t actively avoiding being alone with him. Even some of the more observant in the crew had clearly taken note.

Black really didn’t know what to do.

ඞ。。。。。

“He’s in O2,” Blue said one day out of nowhere.

Black looked up from the wires he was handling and glanced over his shoulder to Blue, who was currently paying unusual attention to the computer screen as he used the weapons tower to break apart asteroids in the atmosphere above Polus. If any came hurtling to the ground anywhere nearby it could easily trigger seismic, if not volcanic, activity. An important job, but considering how often they weeded them out, there was no real need for this level of precision. It was almost at the level of busywork after the several weeks of daily thinning they’d done.

“What?” Black asked, wondering if he’d missed something Blue had said earlier.

“Lime. He should be in O2 right now if he didn’t change his mind. You… should both talk. From the look of everyones’ schedules today, you shouldn’t be interrupted.” There was a pause before Black caught the reflection on the computer screen of a wry twist on Blue’s lips. “…If you’re careful, Gossip and Giggles won’t even know you two met up.” Those must be Blue’s private names for Tan and Yellow. 

Trust that Blue was the only one to dare make a joke about it to him. He had to admire that.

After a moment to assess, Black closed the wiring hatch and slid his tools into the belt pouch attached to his bio-suit. He turned properly to Blue. “Can I ask what’s going on? It seems like you probably know more than I do at this point…” He watched Blue carefully, trying to read if the other man knew about his time at the terminal.

Blue trained the weapons on another few asteroids far above them before slowly turning to face Black. His dark eyes were guarded and his usually devil-may-care expression was subdued. Nothing in his expression hinted at suspicion or trickery. Though, honestly, Blue could probably get away with the most bald-faced lie if he really wanted to. 

He was clever, after all.

“Don’t ask me how it happened — if Lime wants to tell you he can, but I don’t think it matters — but Lime is under the impression he has been stealing time from you and your lover. He’s trying to be considerate, but since he’s a big bumbling idiot when it comes to reading people, he doesn’t realize he’s both wrong and going overboard in the opposite direction even if he weren’t.” Blue rolled his eyes to express exasperation, but there was a mixture of personal grievance and affection that lurked underneath it.

Ah. Various little pieces of the puzzle that was Blue suddenly fell into place for him. So Blue felt the same way about Lime as he did. 

Perhaps Black was the only one who really could see it so clearly. _Lime_ certainly wouldn’t have a clue. That Blue had never acted on those feelings in the years he and Lime had known each other made Black feel a sort of kinship with him. He could see Blue’s heart ache in the subtle flashes of his dark, hooded eyes.

“I don’t have a lover,” Black said as he eyed Blue. Black wondered if Blue were going to bring everything out into the open.

“ _I_ know that, but only you would be able to dislodge the idea in his head now that it’s stuck there. Bloody moron,” Blue muttered before turning back to the computer to blast another few asteroids, presumably to mask his agitation and let him pretend he wasn’t conflicted over what he was doing.

Black realized that he was wasting time he could be using to corner Lime and speak to him, but he needed to know why Blue was helping him. “You could have kept quiet… Might have been to your advantage that way.”

There was a tensing of Blue’s shoulders that betrayed he knew exactly what Black was getting at. Black wondered how often Blue ran into a situation where something he was trying to keep secret and unsaid was exposed. He bet it wasn’t very frequently. Blue ran his fingers through his own hair without looking back and gave a long sigh through his teeth before responding. 

“…I don’t know whether the two of you have any chance of making things work. But I know _we_ don’t.” There was a pause as his voice dropped even lower. “…and he is my friend, so at least he should be happy.”

Blue sounded so defeated that Black actually felt sorry for him. He felt compelled to be strictly honest with the other man.

“I don’t know if we can be more than just friends either… I really can’t commit to a relationship right now.”

“It’s fine,” Blue said quietly, his tone almost listless now. His fingers were moving the controls as if he were firing at asteroids, but Black heard a distinct lack of hits. “The muppet is happy when he’s around you. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

There was silence for a few moments as Blue idly clicked at the screen and the metal walls of the pre-fab weapons building groaned faintly at a shift in the winds outside.

“Good question,” Black murmured in reply before leaving Blue to his own thoughts.


	8. Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime and Black have a meeting in O2.

Lime was hiding out in his favorite place at Polus 339: O2. Specifically “the tree room”, as everyone called it. Y’know, on account of it having a big tree growing in it. 

The Creeper Tree was an invaluable resource in the space-faring age and the terraformation age that followed. Once a simple vine ubiquitous as a houseplant for its high resilience and low-maintenance, scientists had managed to give it dozens of times the usual oxygen production and toxin absorption capabilities (while neutralizing its own natural toxins). Wisely, they kept it from being an invasive species by restricting its reproductive abilities, converting it to a potted or root-restricted tree. Every MIRA site would have at least one Creeper Tree — sometimes even the ships. 

Lime was something of a gardener — both by profession and by hobby. Since he didn’t usually have much to do as a medic in small groups, he would often be assigned to tending to whatever plants the site had. It hadn’t taken long for him to develop a genuine interest in it. Plants didn’t judge you by anything but how well you treated them — and many were extremely tolerant even of that, responding eagerly to the slightest bit of love and attention. 

The green spots of any MIRA site became his sanctuary and, like a holy site, a place to repent and be forgiven. It was no surprise that once he’d pried himself away from Black’s side, he’d spend more time than ever in O2 communing with their Creeper Tree. 

It hadn’t suffered much by the weeks of neglect after the site was abandoned, thankfully. All he really had to do was trim back some of the vine overgrowth in the ceiling trellises, mow the cave grass that grew on the room’s “lawn”, and make sure that the wind simulator on the wall was correctly functioning. He talked to it too. Thousands of years of human study on the issue and researchers were still divided on whether or not it helped — but that didn’t discourage Lime.

Today he had climbed up into the branches and investigated whether or not the Creeper Tree was starting to strangle one of its own limbs. It was the most prevalent issue with the species and it could be quite dangerous if left unchecked. He rambled quietly about one of the books he’d found in the rec room as he worked. It was barely enough to take his mind off the sense of loneliness he felt. 

He missed Black.

It was like an ache in his chest that wouldn’t go away. And he didn’t understand it because he saw him every day. Even talked to him. Not privately, of course. That would take away from the time Black could be spending with his lover. But he always greeted Black the first time they met during the day and made a point of saying at least a few things to him at meals or during mandatory recreation time. Only among group activities, of course. He didn’t want White to get upset. While he was many things he wasn’t proud of, Lime _wasn’t_ a home-wrecker.

It was so confusing.

He’d gone months at a time separated from Brown and Blue when they’d been assigned to different locations — and he hadn’t seen his family or childhood friends in close to seven years. Actually, they barely kept in touch when compared to some families. Why was Black so different?

Lime sighed and put the clipper tool into his backpack, which he dropped safely to the ground beneath him before swinging down from the lowest branch. He dangled a few moments, preparing himself for the landing. He’d done this dozens of times and it wasn’t much of a drop at all even for his shorter stature, but while climbing _up_ was easy for him, every time he was about to get down again he was painfully aware of how fragile the human body was, even supported by bio-suits. It made it hard for him to let go.

As he pretty much expected, he landed off-balance and staggered back a few steps, arms wheeling through the air. He knew he was doomed to land flat on his back, but to his surprise he found himself caught and supported from behind. There was no reason for him to believe it was Black other than that the large hands were just suddenly _there_ with no signs anyone was even nearby. The way his heart jumped in his chest with a combination of happiness and guilt also seemed to suggest who it was. 

Lime looked back to confirm.

He was right. Black looked down at him with concern and a touch of wariness. This prompted Lime to launch into a flurry of apologies, his feelings of guilt ramping up into near panic. Surely if White walked in on this, he’d know that… that nothing _untoward_ was going on, right? Why else would Black look so wary?

Black took all the wind out of those particular sails by running his hands down from Lime’s shoulders until they reached his hands, which he held gently in both of his. “It’s fine. As long as you’re okay, everything is all right. Take a breath… please.”

Lime’s torrent of words stopped and he stared up at Black blankly for a moment before obeying the gentle order. He closed his eyes and took a few slow breaths until he felt himself calm down again. Then he apologized again. “Sorry. …was, uh… startled, I guess.”

“It’s fine. I’m glad I was here so you didn’t get hurt.”

They stood there for almost a minute, completely silent. Black continued to hold his hands and Lime averted his eyes from him to stare at the grass instead. There was so much he felt like he wanted to say, but he was just so confused about what or how to say any of it. Or even if he _should_. He felt like he’d forgotten every bit of what he’d learned about socializing and presenting a calm and relaxed manner. Thankfully before his anxiety could start to work up again, Black spoke.

“I’m not good with people the way you are, Lime. So I’m just going to be blunt and say what I’m thinking, all right?”

Lime’s eyes flew to Black’s with an absolutely dumbfounded expression. Who, exactly, was supposed to be good with people? Because it certainly wasn’t him! He was so caught up in that blatant misrepresentation of his skills he forgot to wonder what Black was going to say.

“White and I aren’t lovers. I don’t have one. So if you’re avoiding me because you’re worried you’re getting in the way, I’d like you to stop, because I miss you. And if there’s something else making you avoid me, please talk to me about it so we can work through it. Okay? …I really… These last few weeks have been lonely without you.”

It may have been the longest string of words Black had ever said to him in one go. He could literally feel the sincerity in Black’s beautiful deep voice as it vibrated through him. The tender way his hands cupped his smaller ones was like a sweet aftertaste of his sincerity. Lime felt his heart skip as a feeling he’d forced to remain dormant started growing. He ignored that feeling for now to stammer out a reply.

“What — you’re not..? But I thought… I mean — I’ve felt lonely too. Are you sure? I don’t want to — but if I’m not in the way, I guess?”

Black’s expression relaxed and he smiled. How he made sense of the words he’d spewed, Lime had no idea. But presumably he made more sense than it felt like. “Yeah. I want to spend time with you because I enjoy it. So if you do too, don’t hold back. We’re… close, right?”

The somewhat sly look Black gave him, as if he’d wanted to say something other than “close”, made Lime’s nerves tingle and he flushed, shifting his weight as he looked around the room as if searching for words. He had no idea what _that_ was, but he liked it and it was a little… intriguing? 

He felt out of his depth.

Realizing belatedly that he should respond, Lime scrambled to find words again. “I… yeah. Okay. I mean, yes! I’m sorry. I feel silly now if I’ve been avoiding you for no reason. It’s… I feel foolish if we were _both_ lonely… Uhm. But if you do end up finding a lover, then I really don’t want to get in your way, okay?”

Wow, okay, saying that just made him feel super sick. If Black hadn’t still been holding both of his hands, he would have checked the read-out on his bio-suit to see what was going on. The O2 machines were functioning properly and the room was well ventilated on top of that, so it wasn’t oxygen toxicity…

“Not really something you’d have to worry about,” Black said with a wry smile. His hands squeezed Lime’s carefully as he smiled down into his eyes. “You’d never be in the way. You can get as close as you like.”

That feeling in his chest grew recklessly. He was hit with sudden clarity and the words fell out of his mouth without consulting with his brain at all. “…oh for goodness’s sake, I’m an idiot.”

Black blinked. “What?”

Lime blushed deeply, tucking his face against Black’s broad chest and laughing as well as shivering with embarrassment and nerves. How? _How had he not noticed he was in love with Black until just now?_ How mortifying!

And of course Blue and Brown must have known before he did, which made it so much worse! Brown had probably expected him to realize his feelings when confronted by the idea that Black and White were together. Blue had clearly been biting his tongue for awhile now. Those conflicted looks Blue had been giving him lately must have been over whether or not to explain things to his poor stupid friend.

Maybe he could just curl up in O2 with Black for the rest of their lives and never have to deal with the fallout of being such an idiot. Wouldn’t that be nice? Just sitting under the Creeper Tree, holding hands, and not talking forever. That sounded nice.

He felt Black’s arms go around him after a moment and he immediately revised his idea of what ‘nice’ was. _This_ was nice. And he got to experience being held while sober and it was even better sober. He kept his face tucked against Black’s chest and closed his eyes, just leaning in against the larger man.

Lime couldn’t even begin to dream of what else would be _nice_ to do with Black.

He couldn’t pursue these feelings. Even if by some miracle Black felt the same way, he had been lying to him this whole time. And if MIRA caught them breaking fraternization rules then there would be no end to their troubles — not with Corporate just waiting to pounce on something they could punish. That was without accounting for the other things going on that MIRA shouldn’t know about… 

It was enough, surely, just to nurture this feeling in his heart while being friends, wasn’t it?

People did it all the time.

White, for example, might be doing exactly that. Just because Black and White weren’t in a relationship didn’t mean that White didn’t hate Lime for getting between them. Should he talk to White? He didn’t know. Maybe he should ask Blue about it. Brown was so good with people in general, but Lime wasn’t sure he was as good with dealing with more delicate feelings. Blue, though…

His train of thought was derailed by feeling Black’s fingers in his hair. He peeked up at him and saw Black catch his glance and then smile at him.

“You have leaves in your hair,” Black said simply, his deep voice a warm rumble. He leaned slightly back to create a gap between their bodies so he could show him the creeper leaves he held between two fingers.

Lime couldn’t help but smile and look up at him again. He was going to say something about the tree, maybe make a joke about it “growing on him” or something dumb to help him put some distance between these new, soft feelings in his heart and establish normalcy between them again. But then Black’s eyes caught his and held them.

Glass green — the rare shade Black’s eyes had sometimes. That was beautiful enough as it was; Lime was positively enraptured by it. It didn’t occur to him to mask that feeling either. Within moments, he saw that green he loved so much shift. A yellow star-burst showed up as a thin ring around his pupil. Then his eyes changed color again, blooming like yellow roses until no trace of green was left.

Black’s eyes were already the most magical he’d ever seen and now Black had somehow made them actually perform tricks. There was a tiny part of Lime that told him he was familiar with eyes being described that way, but he was too distracted to pay attention to that thought right now. He heard himself made a breathless sound of awe as he stared, and then felt his hands go to Black’s shoulders, tugging him down so he could look more closely. Black’s lashes lowered and his head tilted in response. Out of the corner of his eye, Lime saw the leaves that had been pulled from his hair flutter to the grass as that hand moved to cup his face.

In an instant he realized that Black was going to kiss him, likely misunderstanding what he’d been trying to do.

Lime had a long list of reasons why that might not be the best idea right now, but he couldn’t remember any of them. If Black wanted to kiss him, he wasn’t going to refuse. He let his eyes close, his arms slide around Black’s shoulders, and his fingers slip into the thick hair at the nape of his neck. 

He felt Black’s breath warm on his lips and could tell Black was giving them both a chance to change their minds. Lime knew he should but — 

A klaxon went off that scared Lime so much that he jerked away. For a moment he was sure that MIRA had somehow gone full dystopian Big Brother with its anti-fraternization measures. Then he recognized it as the alert that the seismic stabilizers had failed.

“Shit,” Black muttered. Lime felt Black’s fingers dig briefly into his bio-suit before Black released him. They both bolted out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel compelled to point at this as the first time one of the cosmetics comes into play as part of the story. (The leaf on on the head.) I’m doing my best to blend the environment, game mechanics, and cosmetics into something that makes sense, though of course some things have to be bent slightly to fit together. :)


	9. All Shook Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black and Lime try to reset the seismic stabilizers, manage to squeeze in the start of an important conversation, and immediately things get more complicated.

Black and Lime weren’t that far from the seismic stabilizers from where they were in O2, thankfully.

They ran nearly shoulder to shoulder with each other down the halls, Black almost automatically matching Lime’s pace to make sure he didn’t get left behind. There was a window ahead of them that offered a view of the left-most stabilizer platform as they ran. It was still empty. Since they didn’t know how close any of the others were, Black gave orders as they made it to the door out of the building complex.

“I’ll go right. Get the left one.” 

“Okay!” Lime agreed breathlessly and staggered around the corner of the building towards the left platform, his green hair flying in the whipping winds that clawed up the cliffs beside them. They’d forgotten their helmets back in O2 and it was too late to go back for them.

Black felt a little twist in his gut that said it was dangerous to leave Lime to do this on his own. His feet stalled as he watched Lime press ahead towards the precarious platform, each step forward looking like a struggle against the wind. 

Lime wasn’t built for weathering harsh conditions like these. Of the current crew, Lime was the smallest with the most delicate build — a plus for a medic in some of the common spacer disaster situations as it might allow them to reach people those with larger builds like him couldn’t. But in situations like these, it showed why teams had to be carefully balanced. 

The winds of Polus grew even more fierce when the sun fell, even for Black. This time of year, sunset was at roughly 16:00. As it was already quite dark, the winds were gearing up — and it seemed like they were due for a storm. 

It would only get worse through the long night.

But the unsettling tremor he felt beneath his boots as he hesitated told him that changing his mind and going with Lime might be more dangerous. If the rock shelf beneath all of Polus 339 broke apart they were all doomed, so he reluctantly continued towards the other platform. He tried to reassure himself that he was making the correct choice. Black was in better shape than Lime and the other platform was further away. Even then, the best he could manage was a light jog — the winds were fighting him every step of the way and with his build the wind had more surface area to work with, making it hard to make progress. His partner, though nearly as slim and light as Lime, could run faster than this — but it would break his cover if anyone noticed.

As if he’d summoned him with his thoughts, he saw a pale figure streak to the second platform ahead of him as Black drew even with Storage. Black’s mind raced and he decided to go back for Lime, knowing his partner would have the other platform well in hand. Literally, as it would take a palm print from a recognized MIRA employee at each terminal to reset the stabilizers. Why things had been set up that particular way, Black couldn’t say — but MIRA seemed to have a history of making peculiar decisions.

His apprehension eased some when he made his way back close enough to the left platform to see Lime’s figure sagging against the terminal with what was likely a release of tension. The klaxon went silent and the ground almost immediately stopped rumbling ominously beneath them. The danger was over, but Black still pushed forward and joined Lime a few minutes later. Lime had either seen him coming or wasn’t ready to have started making his way back because he simply stayed where he was, to Black’s relief. 

Black pressed a few buttons and looked over the panel, putting an arm around the trembling Lime as his eyes skimmed quickly through the information the panel spat out at him in response to his query. His heart was still pounding hard in his chest from the anxiety of leaving Lime in a dangerous situation.

“All right?” he asked softly, drawing Lime’s body closer to his. He had to remind himself not to hurt Lime by holding him too tightly. If anyone were to ask, he was supporting Lime’s exhausted body or keeping him warm — he’d tailor the excuse as necessary. He didn’t have to pretend to himself, though: he needed the contact to reassure himself that Lime was there and in one piece. 

If anything had happened…

“Fine! I’m fine!” Lime quickly assured, his gloved fingers gripping at the straps of Black’s bio-suit as he called over the winds that tore at their bodies, trying to pull them off the platform. “Adrenaline…” It seemed like he’d wanted to explain better, but gave up considering how difficult it was to hear. 

Not that Black wouldn’t have been able to hear him, but he didn’t think Lime really had a way to know that. And it probably wasn’t good to let him know either.

Black just gave Lime a slight squeeze of acknowledgment before turning his attention back to the panel. After seeing nothing that appeared to be alarming in the terminal’s logs, Black frowned. A technician could probably read it more accurately, but nothing he saw looked off. Nothing that left some evidence of itself behind, that is. A mechanical failure would have the cause noted in red. A fluctuation of seismic, magnetic, or other natural input that overwhelmed the sensors would have been dutifully recorded in yellow. A saboteur would have left some trace of their tampering behind in the form of odd or unnecessary confirmations or denials from the system, or a completely blank log. 

A _human_ saboteur would have, at least.

He’d have to consult with his partner to see if he noticed the same thing. There was next to no way that the other man wasn’t also digging through the logs at the other terminal, scouring them for clues. It was his job, after all, so it wouldn’t be remotely suspicious. Of course, the same couldn’t really be said of _him_ … Engineers poking at this sort of thing might draw attention.

“Come on — let’s go back,” Black said, closing the panel and turning towards the bridge.

That was when all the lights at Polus 339 went out and the entire cliffside was plunged into oppressive darkness.

ඞ。。。。。

Black and Lime each turned on their shoulder-mounted personal lights. The ones on their helmets would have been better, but since they weren’t wearing them they would have to stay close and move slowly so as not to risk losing each other in the dark. The winds now carried snow flurry and the tiny ice shards pricked their exposed faces painfully enough that Black wouldn’t have been surprised to see Lime’s skin bleed.

He didn’t bother to ask permission — Black just took Lime’s hand and kept Lime between him and the building so he was himself between Lime and the cliff’s edge. During the day, the edge always seemed like it was so far away and there was no real need for taking the time to set up a safety rail when there were so many things that were a higher priority. But in the pitch darkness, the delicate man he loved at his side, he severely regretted no one had pushed for those railings. He was tormented by the idea he’d lose Lime when the other man had just come so tantalizingly close to being “his”.

That was definitely something they had to talk about when there was the time to. 

He shouldn’t accept those feelings. There were so many reasons he shouldn’t. But if Lime were going to just offer himself to him, how could Black bring himself to refuse? The way Lime had suddenly melted under his eyes and dragged him closer to kiss had short-circuited every last bit of his common sense. Well, he had said Lime could get as close as he wanted… 

Maybe if they talked about it they could work things out…? There were still so many reasons why things _shouldn’t_ happen between them, but he was rapidly losing ground to common sense now that he had hope Lime returned his feelings.

It might be good to start laying the foundations for that conversation while they had the time and privacy. He could see lights ahead in the distance that seemed to be others joining them to fix Electrical, so there wasn’t much time, but _anything_ to start may be better than nothing. He estimated he had a minute or so alone together to start. It was easier to hear each other here, tucked against the side of the combination Security/O2 building than it had been on the platform.

“Lime?”

“Mm?” Lime responded, squinting up at him through lashes that were dotted with snowflakes. Very pretty, though likely not comfortable, so Black stopped to gently brush them away for Lime with his free hand and block as much of the wintry wind as possible while they spoke.

“The… the other day. In Medbay —” he began, uncertain of exactly how to bring it up. 

He wasn’t expecting the little laugh and lopsided smile up at him. It left Black feeling breathless as it was the most brilliant, _real_ smile Lime had ever given him. Not one of those pretty and practiced receptionist smiles or the equally common muted smiles of someone holding themselves back.

“No worries — there’s nothing wrong with doing a self scan every once in awhile, right?”

And then Lime winked at him. Actually _winked_.

Black felt his heart lurch. It was all he could do not to press Lime against the window they were in front of and taste that slight smirk that hung on his lips. It appeared that Lime trusted him. Must have trusted him even before they’d cleared the air between them. If Lime could do that, it might be safe to explain things to him. He’d need his partner’s permission and it probably couldn’t be _all_ of the truth, but…

When after a few moments all Black could do was stare at him and think furiously of ways to ignore common sense and go for this anyway, Lime smiled again and gave his arm a sort of reassuring pat before turning and continuing off towards the end of the building. He must have seen the others were approaching. Seeing how close the others were, it might not have been safe to continue the conversation even if Black were prepared to do so. Black followed obediently, his hand around Lime’s tightening slightly.

No… Telling Lime some of what was going on might not change things enough to make it okay to pursue him. It wouldn’t be fair to get involved with a human while keeping too much hidden from them. How could he expect to be trusted that way? But maybe it could be enough to start something…

These somewhat bittersweet thoughts were interrupted as they were joined at the door into the building by White, Red, Yellow, and Brown. Brown worked on getting the door open while the other three glanced down at Black and Lime’s joined hands and almost pointedly looked away again. Since everyone else was following regulations and wearing their helmets, the specific reactions of the other men were obscured completely. Black had his guesses, though, and kept his own expression blank. With only a glance, he could tell that Lime was absolutely oblivious.

“What’s taking so long?” White asked, clearly trying to distract from the potentially awkward moment.

“Almost all of the door switches were engaged,” Brown complained. Usually it was only one or two. More than that was unusual.

The door slid open with a hiss and everyone groaned when they saw the door to Electrical was latched too. Yellow jogged forward to take care of that one since Brown had stopped to adjust his flashlight beam. Everyone gratefully filed into the building to get out of the cold wind.

“We may need to break out the winter gear early at this rate,” White observed, absently rubbing at his arms over the sleeves of his bio-suit.

“I think I saw those crates the other day,” Red replied. “Tomorrow I’ll see if we can get it added to someone’s to-do lists. Not a big deal to have them air out even if we don’t need them yet.”

While everyone discussed whether they should bother also grabbing extra winter exterior suits — basically just an extra layer of pants and a fur-lined jacket that went on over the bio-suits — for their hypothetical future crewmates, Yellow managed to get the door to Electrical open. 

Yellow had started to move forward when Black, being one of the only two with his helmet off, caught a strange and unwelcome stench. His hand shot out and he grabbed Yellow’s upper arm tightly. 

“Don’t go in,” Black said, his voice grinding in his own throat at his sudden tension.

“What? Why not?” Yellow asked, sounding confused and a little hurt, as if he thought Black were picking on him.

Black hesitated. Was there really a good way to put this?

While he searched for an approach to explain in the simplest, least upsetting terms, Brown blithely shouldered past, asking what everyone was “farting around for”. Before Black could say anything, it was too late. Brown screamed and stumbled back. “Fuck! Shit — fucking hell! What the hell is that!?”

Yellow pulled himself out of Black’s hold and Red and White surged forward after a brief glance at Black — only proceeding when Black closed his eyes and let them go. He only opened them again when Lime tried to follow the others. Though he managed to catch Lime’s hand again to try to keep him from seeing anything, the other man yanked himself free when everyone who had gone ahead started yelling and asking questions like:

“Is he still alive? Shit — is there _any way he’s still alive!?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, it starts to get darker from here. I try not to be particularly graphic (I am a relatively squeamish person and so of course I didn’t write above my own comfort zone), but peoples’ comfort levels may vary on violence and descriptions/implications of such. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, consider asking a friend to check upcoming chapters for you. I just wanted to provide a warning because the darkness ramps up a little more for each of the next several chapters and I didn’t want people getting caught off-guard. The first several chapters were pretty tame and fluffy, after all!


	10. Tasks and Trepidation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime thinks about who the Impostor might be and comes to the conclusion you would all expect from him. Then everyone gets their task lists.

Most of the crewmates were currently gathered in the office break room.

Yellow was curled up in a chair in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms still wrapped tightly around himself. He’d at least stopped rocking back and forth, which while understandable from the shock, had put everyone on edge. The light sedative Lime had given him must have taken effect, even if right now he was staring sort of blankly into the middle distance. Brown sat with him and gently consoled him with soft murmurs and pats on the shoulder, his usually animated face somber.

Tan was dead.

Ripped neatly in half, his blood splattering most of the fenced in area of Electrical, it was a horrific sight even in the dark. Though not a coroner, based on his examination Lime was of the opinion that it must have been an instant death, so there was some small consolation there. At least Tan probably didn’t suffer. The worst part was that even after a thorough search, no one could figure out where the other half of his body had gone.

Just thinking about that made Lime’s stomach churn.

A large, warm hand rested gently on his shoulder and Lime looked over to see Black’s concerned eyes searching his expression, clearly trying to determine how well he was coping. Lime pushed a smile to his lips and tried to convey reassurance. There wasn’t much to worry about with him, after all.

He was fine. As fine as one could be when you’d seen the result of a coworker of yours being horrifically killed. But fine.

The thing that concerned him the most right now was Blue.

It had been a little over an hour since they’d found Tan in Electrical and Blue still hadn’t shown up. In a normal workday, they would have gathered here together for dinner by this time. So even if he’d just got caught up doing his tasks and somehow missed the entire seismic stabilizer and light failure incidents, he should have at least have recognized it was past dinnertime by now. 

Something was clearly wrong.

While Brown, Lime, and White had tried to calm Yellow down, Red and Black had gone to search for Blue. Since there was no team leader at Polus 339, the Admin table was locked, so they couldn’t pinpoint his location that way. They’d come up empty in all the places he was likely to be — even when checking some places he had little reason to go. Right now, White and Red were in Communications reporting the incident to Forte back at HQ. 

The rest of them… waited.

Waited for Yellow to calm down. Waited for Blue to turn up safely. Waited for Red and White to return with whatever HQ wanted them to do. Waited for the other shoe to drop.

ඞ。。。。。

“Headquarters advises that there is a 98.46% chance that there is an Impostor here at Polus 339,” White reported. His crisp voice and neutral expression were perfect for the situation. It was almost as if he were reading off information about an unrelated site and there was nothing at all for them to worry about.

Almost as calmly as if he hadn’t said the word they’d all been so careful to never say aloud before this. Lime himself had tried to never even think it.

“What the fuck,” Yellow responded, his voice thin and reedy as he started shaking again. “F-fuck! An Impostor! I — I knew it! We’re all going to die!”

Lime understood his fear. Impostors were a relatively recent threat — only coming to public attention in the last few years, though it was possible they’d been an issue for as much as a full generation if you listened to the conspiracy theorists. The current theory was that they were an alien life form, but as known encounters with Impostors generally happened only at isolated outposts or spaceships and were usually a massacre of all of the humans present, there wasn’t much information available on them. 

The few survivors of these attacks reported thinking everyone there was someone they knew, sometimes for years, before they revealed themselves to be horrific monsters. Wide, gaping maws of sharp teeth, tentacles that could stab through a human torso like a spear, and the ability to deform their bodies to fit into small gaps were the most common reports as to what they were like in their proper form.

As Yellow started to panic White smoothly cut in, his cool voice just as level as before, as if he were trying to have his calm override Yellow’s anxiety. “If we can identify the Impostor, we are authorized to deal with it as we see fit. There are methods we are told we can use to neutralize it without killing it and if we can do so, that is the option MIRA would prefer. I have the protocols for initiating —”

“No need!” Yellow shouted, leaping to his feet. “It’s Blue! It has to be Blue! He’s the only one not here! Let’s just find him and throw him into the lava trench. _Done_.”

Everyone stared a moment at the unhinged looking Yellow in varying degrees of shock or disquiet at his outburst.

“N-no,” Lime protested weakly. “I don’t think it’s Blue. He’s… I’ve known him for _years!_ He can’t be an Impostor! Maybe the Impostor came from outside. Blue must be hiding somewhere… trying to stay safe.”

There was a whistling sort of inhalation. The kind of sound someone made when they were about to say something no one wanted to hear or say. “…Unfortunately…” Red began awkwardly, running a hand over the top of his bare head.

“It has to be one of us,” White continued, picking up when Red clearly didn’t want to continue. “Scans of the area show seven lifeforms. Vitals confirm that all seven of us are alive. Unless an Impostor managed to somehow make it to Polus without a spacecraft or foreign object being registered as entering its atmosphere, trek all the way to 339 without tripping a perimeter alarm, and then killed Blue and is currently wearing his bio-suit, it has to be one of the seven of us.”

There was a heavy silence that felt smothering.

“It’s… it’s not Blue,” Lime said, barely even hearing himself.

“Then _who is it_ , then?!” Yellow nearly shrieked, his voice cracking in a way that made Lime’s eyes tear slightly with empathy. The young engineer crossed the room and loomed over Lime as if he were about to hit him with both fists. “ _Who?_ Who the fuck killed Tan???”

Lime tried not to quail from Yellow’s anger, but he trembled slightly. Black didn’t say anything, just standing up behind Lime and staring Yellow down. It didn’t dissuade Yellow in the least. Seeing how close to the edge Yellow was, Brown and Red quickly got to their feet and guided him back to his seat in the corner, trying to calm him down.

“Forgive him, okay? Tan was kind of like a dad to him, y’know?” Brown muttered to the others. If Yellow heard, he didn’t take offense. He just curled up in the corner chair and began rocking again, tears in his eyes as he made the sounds of someone trying to choke back sobs.

There was another awful lull as Lime tried to keep his breathing even while he tried not to fold under the pressure. If it was true — if one of the seven of them was the Impostor — then who _was_ it? 

There was no easy answer. Not even for who Lime would _rather_ it was. He sincerely believed in all of them and didn’t want any of them to end up being a murderous creature on the hunt. But he desperately didn’t want it to be Black, Blue, or Brown. 

Of course it wasn’t any of them — he believed that. He had to.

Objectively, he knew Blue was a good suspect. The most obvious suspect, really, considering he was missing at this critical juncture. Blue also kept everyone at arm’s length — even those he knew the best. Not even Lime was so foolish as to believe he truly knew Blue. He was as quiet and elusive as a cat and sometimes twice as smug about it. But Lime believed in him. He wanted to believe in him. He _had_ to believe he was safely hidden and biding his time. For all his snark and secrecy, Blue had always treated him as a precious friend. Lime believed it was sincere.

It couldn’t be Black. Not the man who had been his personal superhero from the start. Not the man who had sung so sweetly to him and petted his hair while he was drunk. Not the man he thought he loved. There weren’t the years of trust between them that he had with Blue and Brown, but a part of him knew from the first day they met that Black would never hurt him or allow him to be hurt.

It wasn’t Brown. He was such a good friend to everyone. Always doing his best to mediate situations and keep morale up. He’d known him for so long — since his first tour with MIRA. Lime wasn’t sure he could think of anyone he trusted more. Brown knew all of his secrets. He’d consoled him when he was down, listened to his troubles and fears, and cheered him up when Lime felt at his lowest. He’d been there for him even more than Blue, and with less judgment.

After that, Lime’s analysis broke down. He didn’t know Red, White, or Yellow very well. The times they interacted were almost always part of a group conversation. He rarely worked one-on-one with any of them and during free time, he’d be more likely to spend time with those closest to him than try to make new friends. And they hadn’t sought him out either.

Red was a friendly and funny family man — always quick to explain things to anyone and be a team player when it came to getting things done. Lime felt like if it were Red, it would shake his trust in his own judgment to the core. And while White seemed like the most detached, clinical personality of everyone at Polus 339, Lime trusted Black’s trust in him. Someone like Black didn’t seem to make friends easily, so he must choose carefully those he picks to be close to. If it were White or Red, he knew Black would be just as devastated by it as Lime would be if it were any of those closest to him. That left Yellow, who was clearly so heartbroken that he couldn’t imagine anyone, much less an alien, could fake that sort of reaction. And Yellow was the youngest of them all, which somehow in the back of Lime’s mind made it too much like bullying to suspect him.

While Lime was weighing the options, he could sense everyone else was making similar calculations in their own heads. Black still stood over Lime, the hand he kept on Lime’s shoulder both protective and reassuring. Lime didn’t think Black suspected him, which was nice. But he couldn’t say what anyone else thought of anyone else.

A sick, creeping dread began to rise in him. What if someone could be an Impostor without knowing? Wouldn’t that open it up to _any_ of them? Including himself?

Before Lime’s imagination could grab that thought in its claws and run away with it, White spoke up.

“We can’t just sit here in silence indefinitely. Our nerves will get the better of us. At this rate we’ll stay up all night on-edge and the Impostor will strike when we’re weak for lack of sleep. We should follow the protocol Headquarters sent. Capturing the Impostor alive is the best for all parties. The more we know about them, the safer everyone will be.”

There was a lurch in the mood of the room as everyone dragged themselves out of their own dark thoughts and tried to get into a more productive mindset.

“Okay,” Brown said slowly. “What do we need to do?”

Everyone looked to White for guidance. For now, everyone’s eyes were clear of suspicion. Red had been with White when they received the information from Headquarters, so it was unlikely that even if he were the Impostor that he could get away with falsifying anything HQ had said to do. It also seemed unlikely that if White were the Impostor that he’d have brought it up at all, so things looked good for White being safe.

Red likewise shook off his contemplative state and stood. Between the two of them, Red and White explained things. The weather nodes that kept the occasional storms from getting out of control could apparently be altered to affect Impostors somehow. They seemed to intentionally be vague about exactly how that happened. Either they were trying to prevent the Impostor from thwarting the process or they sincerely didn’t know how it worked. In the end, it didn’t matter as long as rerouting the nodes and doing all the other things that needed doing to make it work actually did its job of subduing the Impostor.

Everyone was handed a short list of tasks to accomplish which were printed out from one of the terminals in Communications.

“Shit — we’ll be all over the fuckin’ map,” Brown said, scanning his list. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to give everyone tasks in the same area? The storm’s getting worse…”

Red made an extended “eeh” sound before shrugging. “The lists were prepared by HQ. They don’t want anyone stuck anywhere for too long. We still don’t know who the Impostor is, so this is safer. We don’t even know if everything on the lists are necessary to pull this off. They said we can give medical scans too. Impostors will register as abnormal.”

“Great! We can scan everyone and then we’ll know!” Brown said brightly. “Let’s just do that!”

Lime shook his head a little. “We can’t scan everyone. It uses too much power. My list says with the power we have we can only scan two tonight. We don’t know how much power we’re going to need for the weather nodes.”

“Fuck the weather nodes then!” Yellow broke in impatiently, his voice hoarse and clipped. “If we can scan everyone, we won’t need it!”

White made a sigh that sounded like he was completely done with Yellow and rubbed the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses. “And if we figure out who the Impostor is, then what? How do we deal with an Impostor once we’ve found one? I doubt it’s as simple as identifying who it is and them saying, ‘ah, you got me, good game’ — do you?”

Yellow shut up, his expression crumpling. Lime felt bad for him, but White wasn’t wrong. Frankly, Lime was pretty sure as high-strung as Yellow was right now anything less than a complete shut-down wouldn’t have worked.

“Between the seismic sensors going down and the storm, we won’t be able to access either the geothermal or solar power supplies until nearly morning at the earliest,” Red broke in, clearly trying to diffuse the tension and move things along.

A flaw with the geothermal system was that it was tied too tightly to the sensors. A reset would lock down the power supply entirely to ensure there was plenty of power to keep the area stable in case of emergencies. Normally it wasn’t a problem. New power could come in thanks to the solar panels being good enough to draw energy from ambient light during the night — but with the storm, there wasn’t any new power coming in, meaning they were reliant entirely on the batteries. Until either system started sending power to the batteries again, they were down to essentials.

“That means one of our first tasks is to get the outside lights off and conserve power. We’ll have to rely on the lights attached to our bio-suits,” Red added almost apologetically.

“Shit,” Yellow breathed, perhaps speaking for all of them.

There was a pause before Black spoke up. “We’d best get to it. Sooner done; sooner over. Try to buddy up with someone you trust… Remember that we don’t really know who to trust. Better a side-eye on you now, even if you’re innocent, than the alternative. Don’t take it personally. Keep an eye out for Blue. Just because he’s missing doesn’t mean it’s him. If you find him, report in using your comms and we’ll return here for a meeting to decide what to do next.”

“Who are we scanning?” Yellow asked suddenly.

“For now, no one. Let’s keep our options open,” White suggested. “Narrowing the pool of suspects might make the Impostor go after the ones we all know are cleared first, just to prevent us from finishing the tasks.”

It seemed reasonable, so after a moment everyone reluctantly got to their feet and headed out of the break room. As he was leaving through the main office, Lime stopped at the vitals screen that read the information from their bio-suits. He was gratified to see Blue was still alive. But the readings were abnormal. Stressed. What that meant, he couldn’t say from just this screen. He’d have to find Blue.

“Let’s go,” Black said softly, offering his large hand to Lime, his gaze sympathetic and otherwise impenetrable.

Lime took Black’s hand and let him lead him away.


	11. Clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confession, a discovery, and various covers begin to unravel. (Black's POV.)

Before they parted company, Black exchanged looks with White. They had worked as partners together for so long, that was all it took for each to confirm the other’s intentions. Black was going to protect Lime and look for Blue while they did the task lists assigned to them. White was going to try to finish their mission without drawing attention to either of them.

It was all they could really do at this point. 

If they were lucky, they’d be able to come out the other side of the night with the mission accomplished and their covers intact. _This_ they could both agree on as ideal. After that, their priorities differed. White would likely still hold the mission in higher priority than even his own life. Black wanted to safely leave Polus with Lime. Since their goals weren’t really in conflict, neither had to make the hard choice to act against the other. They would even help each other where they could.

The idea of leaving White on his own right now itched at him. It wasn’t exactly something that sat well with him when so much could go wrong. White was his friend too, so if at all possible, he wanted White to be safe as well. There were a lot of things he could put on his wishlist of things to happen, but with the threat of _Impostor_ writ large on everyone’s minds, things could go sideways at any moment. As soon as someone panicked or let paranoia win over, any hope of controlling the situation was up to someone being in the right place at the right time.

Yellow was clearly the most unstable. And for good reason. If he felt threatened, he’d be the most likely to scuttle the plan of keeping the Impostor alive and bringing the group together to calmly discuss what to do. In fact, he was most at risk of killing someone he simply _thought_ was an Impostor without even confirming it. If Yellow were a part of the group that found Blue first, something was bound to happen.

Thankfully, once it became inescapable that either HQ or the crewmates themselves were going to bring up the threat of Impostors sooner or later, Black and White had discussed their plans. 

White had hacked the Medbay scanner. If either of them were scanned, they’d show as ‘human’. Even an expert would have trouble discovering any evidence to the contrary. At least using this particular scanner. And with no other scanner at Polus 339, the biggest threat of being revealed to be anything other than human was thus neutralized.

Over the past weeks, Black and White had downloaded and transferred a lot of data that the organization they were a part of wanted. Ideally they would have stayed here for months or even years, slowly leaking information MIRA didn’t want anyone to have from the safety of some backwater outpost that hadn’t had its tech or data security upgraded since the place was built. Now that the idea of “Impostor” was out in the open, Polus 339 was as good as wiped from the map. Therefore they should use these vulnerable systems to infect other MIRA systems while they could use it as a back door to the more secure sites. 

With luck, it would be years before anyone even noticed it’d happened. With _more_ luck, Polus 339 would be razed to the ground by then too, making it even more difficult to trace what had happened.

Because that was the route they had decided to take and their choice had been confirmed by their superiors once it became clear MIRA was getting edgy about the possibility of Impostors, they were almost certain to need to make a hasty retirement from these identities if they survived. If that happened, they’d likely never work within MIRA again — maybe nowhere within a human sphere if things went particularly south. Survivors of an Impostor attack were too rare not to attract attention. They’d have to be very careful not to have their inhuman identities exposed during the debriefing. Thankfully they had insiders ready to confirm their humanity and lack of infection, but it would be better if they could be extracted without going through MIRA’s system… 

Black’s musings while he and Lime walked through the hall towards the Laboratory were interrupted.

“Can we… talk a minute?” Lime asked softly, a tremor of nerves in his voice.

He felt a hand reach up to rest on his forearm, as if to secure his attention. Black slowed to a stop and looked over, feeling his own expression immediately soften. 

When they’d entered the building complex, Lime had raised the visor of his helmet. His sweet face was clearly very troubled now as if he was struggling over how to approach whatever he wanted to talk about. Black set down the bag he was carrying to raise his own visor as well, offering a small, reassuring smile to the other man. Lime’s lips wobbled slightly as he seemed torn between his own natural reaction to smile in return and the need to cry. 

Black turned to properly face him and gently took Lime’s hands in his, thumbs lightly stroking over Lime’s knuckles.

“All right… I’m ready.” Black pitched his voice to be as soft and soothing as he could make it. He could feel Lime’s fingers trembling in his and knew the best approach was probably to wait for Lime to speak. He didn’t want to derail Lime’s attempts to explain himself, so all he could do was keep his eyes gentle and attentive and hold Lime’s hands.

“I… have a confession,” Lime said softly, his voice like spun sugar — thin and incredibly fragile. His eyes were lowered to their joined hands. In spite of the phrasing, not for a second did Black think he meant anything romantic by it.

Once it became obvious that Lime needed a response, Black murmured a reply. “I’m listening. Whatever it is, we’ll work through it together, okay?”

“Mmn…” Lime nodded. It took another few moments for him to build up the courage to continue. In the meantime, the storm’s winds were whistling like an army of angry tea kettles and battering against the metal pre-fab buildings and abandoned crates left outside. Even from inside the building, the metallic racket was audible. “I’m not… who you think I am.”

Black blinked. He waited and when Lime once again struggled, he simply drew Lime’s hands closer so he could kiss at his gloved knuckles. “It’s okay. I’m still listening.” 

He had to resist the urge to say the same thing back at him — he wasn’t who Lime thought he was either. His desire to be honest with Lime couldn’t outweigh the risk to White’s life, however, so Black kept the words behind his own teeth. He wasn’t prepared to lay down his own life for no reason either, as romantic as the idea might seem to trust Lime blindly.

“I… I’ve been… l-lying this whole time.” Lime’s voice was starting to break as he spoke. But he started rushing through his words from there like someone running downhill. It was messy and must have hurt, but he couldn’t stop once he got going. “I’ve been doing… bad things this whole time. I’m a mole — a s-spy. Corporate. Not… I don’t work for a government or anything. No ideals just… just getting paid. Not just here — other… other places too. People have got fired over it. Hurt. One even died. Not… not specifically from what I did. Not the death. But. It happened. Some of the things here. Sabotage. I sabotaged some things. To hide my tracks. W-what if… I’m the Impostor… and I don’t k-know it? I don’t think… anyone here is… is the Impostor. What if I don’t know it — and I hurt someone? Hurt _you?_ ”

Black’s heart ached for Lime. The other man was trying so hard to speak clearly, but by the point he got to the end Lime was nearly heaving with emotion. Black honestly had no idea how Lime managed to work a job like this for so long. It must have weighed on someone as naturally honest as he seemed to be. Black gently gathered Lime to his chest, tucking Lime’s face against it as he stared off into the darkness with a complicated little smile of his own.

“No,” he reassured him. “You’re not. …They know what they are. Impostors know. Do you understand?” He gently stroked his fingers through Lime’s hair as he felt him shudder, trying to repress his sobs. “You didn’t kill Tan. You’re okay. All right? You’re safe.”

A heartbroken little sob finally tore free from Lime and trembled like a small, frightened creature. “H-how do you know?”

Black drew a breath and held it. He knew he was about to reveal more than he should when they were interrupted by a feeble voice.

“ _Help_ …”

ඞ。。。。。

They found Blue shoved inside the bottom cabinet on the far side of the Laboratory’s workstation. There was no telling where the things that should have been inside had been taken, but Black’s bet was they were thrown over the balcony to prevent people from noticing things weren’t where they were supposed to be. 

Blood had been leaking in thin rivulets from the cracks of the cabinet doors, which is how Black detected the location. While trying to locate the source of the weak voice, the smell of it caught his attention. When they got the latched door to the cabinet open, blood gushed out in a sickly little wave to pool on the tile beneath. 

Blue was in very bad shape. It was good that it was the two of them that had found him. Lime’s medical training took over, keeping him from falling apart at the sight of his gravely injured friend. Black’s strength and basic familiarity with field medicine helped expedite Lime’s will. Black hadn’t even been sure if Blue would live long enough to be hooked up to the machines in the Medbay only feet away from where they’d found him. 

He was honestly surprised Blue had survived to be found at all.

After what seemed like dozens of close calls, Lime managed to get Blue stable enough to have Black move him to the best bed. Then he kept Black busy keeping Blue from crashing for nearly another hour before it was safe to take the time to do anything else. Thankfully MIRA hadn’t cut many corners when it came to medical supplies or equipment. They had everything that a larger outpost would have, even if it wasn’t plentiful or the best. Lime also clearly knew his job. 

While Lime continued treating the man who kept floating in and out of consciousness, Black took a step back and used his comm to alert the others. “We found him.”

“Where?”

“Who?”

“Blue — we found Blue and he’s in critical condition. Lime and I are treating him in Medbay. We should do the meeting in the lab.” Lime would be difficult to convince to leave Blue, not that Black would blame him.

“On our way.”

“Yeah — I’m not far from Medbay.”

“Got it.”

Everyone checked in over the comms, which was likely reassuring to more than just Lime. Lime had looked over at Black as he spoke to everyone with an intense expression Black assumed was due to either Blue’s condition or general tension over the situation. Sometime during their treatment of Blue, they’d both removed their helmets entirely to better see what they were doing. Lime’s lips were pressed so tightly together they were white and his eyes were red with unshed tears.

“How is he doing?” Black asked gently, coming over to lightly touch Lime’s shoulder.

“…not good. I think he’ll pull through but… I’m not sure.” Lime’s voice was rough with emotion. “It wouldn’t take much to… tip the balance… not in his favor.”

Lime hesitated and tripped over his own words, likely from a combination of trying to put things into terms a relative layperson like Black could understand and also not being detached enough from the situation to want to say anything that might hurt himself to say. MIRA medics weren’t usually doctors. They were somewhere closer to resident nurses. They weren’t really expected to deal with grievous injuries like these.

Black lifted his hand to briefly stroke Lime’s hair, looking into his eyes as he searched for words. “We’ll take care of him, Lime. He’s strong enough to survive until we found him. If you think he has a shot, I’ll bet he’ll do his best to live up to your expectations.”

This seemed to be the twig that broke the dam. Lime flung himself at Black’s chest and cried against him, clutching at the straps on Black’s sides as he tried to smother the sound of his pain and fear. Black held him and rubbed his back, watching over Blue in Lime’s place until the medic had calmed down.

Even when the others started to filter into the combination laboratory and Medbay, Lime still leaned his head against Black’s chest, presumably taking comfort from the closeness. He’d calmed down enough to stop crying, but perhaps he wasn’t yet ready to show his face. When the last person had joined them, Lime had recovered enough to move closer to the lab area, keeping one ear on the situation in Medbay as they relayed what they knew about Blue’s condition.

“So he’s not the Impostor,” Red said, probably speaking for all of them.

“Unlikely,” White determined. “ _Extremely_ unlikely. If these were wounds that Tan had inflicted on him, he wouldn’t have been locked inside the cabinet on the other side of the compound from where we found the body.”

“They don’t look like wounds that any of us could inflict. There are large puncture wounds, jagged cuts… tears…” Lime clearly didn’t want to go into greater detail — his skin had taken on a color similar to his suit. He’d probably tried to imagine how the wounds were delivered.

“White — you know a little about this sort of thing… You should look him over and see if you notice anything _unusual_ ,” Black said, trying not to over-stress that last word and draw too much attention to it.

In spite of his efforts, the others all looked at him. Because everyone was on high-alert, they clearly caught there was some sort of subtext to what he’d said, but he didn’t think anyone but White knew for sure what he meant. Black kept his expression neutral, not wanting to give anything else away. He let his eyes blandly move over the others, taking note of any changes in their own expressions.

White stared hard at him for a long moment before breaking eye contact; making a sound of irritation. “T’ch…” White passed Black and Lime to go to Blue’s bedside. With their help, he examined Blue’s body carefully, his lips pressed thin and his normally icy gaze blazing.

“How do we know it’s safe to let him near Blue?” a strained voice asked from the lab.

“Ex _cuse_ me?” White asked in his frostiest voice, not looking up from Blue’s wounds.

“He _could_ be the Impostor. He could kill him and then us,” Yellow continued, his tone sounding as wobbly as his stance. He seemed to be coming unraveled from the stress.

“Don’t be stupid, Yellow,” White replied coldly, finally lifting his head to glare across the room at him. “ _If_ I were the Impostor — which I am _not_ — then why would I blow my cover to murder Blue, who is currently completely helpless and likely to be so for hours in the best case scenario, when that would give the able-bodied among us time to defend themselves or escape? Think. Calm down and _fucking_. _Think_.”

There was a strained silence that no one broke. On the bed, they could clearly hear Blue rasp a breath. The machines indicated elevated vitals for a few moments before returning to a steady rhythm. No one moved, as if afraid doing so would somehow harm the broken man on the bed.

Then — 

“Who is it, then? If it’s not Blue, who is it?” Yellow whispered, loud enough to carry but not loudly enough to deserve another description. “We should check people with the scanner thing. We should do it now. We should start with White. He’s the smartest of us all. He could figure out a thousand ways to kill us and get away with it. He’s the most dangerous.” The young man trembled with fear, his eyes wide.

“For crying out — Fine. If that’s what it takes to settle this, then I’ll do it.”

“No,” a voice grated.

Unexpectedly, it came from Blue, even though his eyes didn’t open and his vitals remained what they were. His face barely moved when he spoke, giving the illusion that a ghost was speaking for him. It made even Black’s skin erupt in goosebumps. Some of the others blanched or leaned away.

“No?” Lime echoed quietly, after a few moments.

“…Impostor. …hacked it.” Every word seemed as broken as his body. As if he were using his own precious life force to deliver the message. “Can’t trust it…”

“Who did this, Blue? Who’s the Impostor!?” Yellow asked urgently.

They all waited a little longer, but from the shudder followed by the sigh and relaxation of his body, Blue had slipped back into unconsciousness. Everyone exchanged tense glances, several of them looking extremely pale. 

Yellow started muttering after a few moments. Black could only hear fragments of what he said — it sounded like a litany of colors, likely meaning he was going through a list of who seemed the best person to accuse next. Nothing that seemed directed at anyone, but it prompted Red and Brown to both try to calm Yellow back down and speak quietly between themselves.

During the distraction, White sidled up to Black and murmured the result of his investigation of Blue’s body. “Not infected. Probably fine.” 

Black relaxed. Things were not quite as dire as they could have been. He ran his fingers through his own hair and glanced over at Lime. Lime stared back at him with an expression that said he’d overheard — and had questions. It wasn’t quite accusing, but certainly there was a note of uncertainty to his look. 

White noticed too and frowned — first at Lime and then at Black.

“…Your call,” was all White said before he gave Lime one last hard look and rejoined the others, raising his voice when he addressed them. “We should get back to work.”

“Black — it has to be Black,” Yellow said wildly, ignoring White. “He didn’t want us going into Electrical to find the body!”

“I had my helmet off. I smelled…” Black trailed off, knowing elaborating on what he smelled was only likely to set Yellow off worse.

“Then Lime!”

“We were together almost the entire period after final shift,” Black growled, getting annoyed. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand why Yellow was freaking out — he just was tired of dealing with it since it was adding to everyone else’s stress too. “He was never out of my sight longer than a couple of minutes. Not enough time.” 

“You would cover for him if he was, though!” Yellow accused. “ _Both_ of you would cover for each other! They’re in it together!”

“Just _shut your damned mouth_ ,” White snarled, losing his patience entirely. “We need to finish our tasks. Once they’re done, it’ll either be _obvious_ who it is or we can sit around and map out who was where and when until we logic the fuck out of someone’s alibi, okay? Will that make you _shut the fuck up?_ ”

Yellow seemed winded from White’s fierce, almost rabid dressing down. Usually White was as cool and collected as the image he projected. Black knew the real White, though, and it was clear he had no patience for maintaining that facade at the moment. Yellow was honestly pretty lucky he hadn’t been knocked out, knowing how short White’s fuse actually was.

“Let’s get to work, then,” White said, giving everyone who didn’t move a glare that threatened violence if they didn’t obey.

Everyone scattered, leaving Black and Lime alone with Blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for making the end of 2020 lovely. <3 Whether you are one of the people who has been leaving comments or an entirely silent reader, I appreciate you and hope 2021 is wonderful. <3


	12. Kaleidoscope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime learns what Black really is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I mentioned cosmetics coming into play? We’re here.

_What do they know?_ , was the first thought Lime had when he saw White say something about “infection” to Black. The second thought he had was, _What exactly are they up to?_ It wasn’t a fully formed thought. There was no twist in his gut that said they were dangerous… at least not to him. Not even when White had stared at him to size him up before leaving it up to Black what to do with him.

He knew that look. That look that calculated what someone had to do to keep the other party quiet and compliant. 

His position as a mole in MIRA was pretty low-stakes. He just did a few small things here and there according to the orders issued to him by his handler — mostly just passing on information, looking the other way, and simply _not_ being somewhere that would be inconvenient. He didn’t know how to look at people like that. But he’d worked with people in the industry that dealt with the heavier stuff — the intimidation and the “wet-work”. _That_ was how they looked at people.

If he’d been deemed a threat…

But Lime still trusted that Black meant him no harm and Black and White had a good enough relationship that White would respect it pretty far past where he otherwise might start doing the “expedient” thing. So Lime wasn’t especially worried. Not yet, anyway.

He waited until everyone had left, his brain buzzing with questions. Black gave Lime a look when he opened his mouth to ask them and shook his head as he lightly pressed a finger to Lime’s half-parted lips. 

Lime kept quiet as directed, his eyes sliding shyly away from Black as he became aware again that only a few hours ago they had almost kissed — and realized once again just how interested he was in continuing that line of thought. Lime wondered if under other circumstances he would have had the courage to use the touch to his lips as an excuse to try to flirt. The very idea of acting so boldly made him feel dizzy. 

That or the stress.

“They’re gone,” Black said after a moment, withdrawing his hand. His forest green eyes moved to Blue to stare at him where he lay unconscious on the bed, his own lips pursing thoughtfully.

“…is…” Lime wasn’t sure how to ask, so he took a moment to straighten his shoulders and just dived in. “Is there something wrong with Blue? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

“Mmn… Probably not, thankfully. White doesn’t think the Impostor infected him when it attacked.” 

Black turned back to him, his expression almost oddly neutral. Usually Black’s eyes were so soft and warm when he looked at him. The contrast made Lime feel disconnected from Black… and he didn’t like it.

Lime drew a slow breath as he prepared to ask a question he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the answers to. 

“How do you know? I mean — about Impostors. If it was something that was common knowledge… some sort of infection… I’d know, wouldn’t I? A medic would be told what to look out for once it became common knowledge. Especially once HQ decided there was such a good chance we had Impostors among us. So… how do _you_ know?”

He’d known since he walked in on Black downloading from the Medbay terminal that Black was… involved in something. It had been an easy choice to turn a blind eye to it. Even discounting his personal feelings for Black, Lime was doing the same thing, after all, and had no orders to police the movements of others. He wouldn’t really be surprised to discover two or three operatives in any given gathering of MIRA employees. What competing company or rights watch groups _didn’t_ want to take a look at what MIRA was up to? 

Granted, the scans from Medbay had little or nothing to do with MIRA the company and everything to do with the individual employees, but most corporate spies didn’t exactly get a free pass to decline based on personal morality. They’d only just started their six month service at Polus 339, so it wasn’t like Black could gracefully decline if he got the order and expect to have continued support from those he worked for. Some agencies even threatened their operatives with reveals — or death — if they got too difficult to work with. The agency Lime worked for tried to work with those concerns, so Lime had been thinking in the back of his head that if the subject ever came up between them, he’d try recruiting Black…

But something told him it was no longer so simple.

Black glanced again at Blue, opening his mouth on a silent breath as he used his tongue to thoughtfully press against the tips of his own teeth. It just drew attention to his canines, which Lime only just realized were a little longer and sharper than usual. A little fission of shock shot through him as it suddenly occurred to him that Black might… not… be human.

The first thing that probably should have come to mind was wondering if Black and White were Impostors. But it seemed close to inconceivable that things would have fallen out the way they had so far if there were _three_ Impostors on site, surely? So the idea was jettisoned immediately.

Everyone knew there were others out there in the universe. Humans had met and made treaties with the ones within their galaxy over a hundred years ago. Some people even had the chance to interact with them. But to prevent various ills such as pan-planetary disease and war, the galaxy was divided into sectors and each civilization was supposed to stay within specific sectors. There were three civilizations as part of the Galactic Treaty; humans were just one of them. 

The other two were the Psychrolutes — a semi-aquatic race with a relatively inhuman; sometimes blob-like form — and the Daemons. No three guesses were really needed for where they got _their_ name. Apparently the Daemon race and the human race had been interacting since prehistoric times, which was where all the stories of demons, angels, and fairies came from. They were known to be human-like in appearance, being generally quite attractive, and with abilities humans have dreamed of since there was language to express those desires.

Of the other two known sentient races in the galaxy, humans generally found the Daemons more threatening.

They were definitely, absolutely, _not_ supposed to be in this sector — much less working for a human company like MIRA. They _especially_ shouldn’t have done so while pretending to be human. That made Black — and probably also White — Daemonic spies. And he doubted it was something as simple as his own corporate espionage. But why would a human company like MIRA interest the Daemons? Or was it MIRA at all?

Lime felt somehow mortified, as if he should have picked up the signs before this — if not of their profession (it was immediately clear to him there was probably a huge gap in skill between them), then at least of them not being human. Those magical eyes of Black’s should have told him that already. He’d even seen it in action and been too enchanted to realize it!

Daemons came in different kinds, with features and abilities specific to the sub-race they were a part of — but the feature they all shared was their “kaleidoscope eyes” that could shift to entirely different colors.

Lime watched as it happened now, Black’s eyes changing from their usual forest green to being laced with fragments of that pretty glass green, the beautiful yellow he saw when they’d nearly kissed, and an unfamiliar near-black. As if Black realized what Lime was staring at, his gaze lowered.

“I’m… not who you think I am either, Lime,” Black said after a moment, raising his mesmerizing eyes again. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, obviously. It would put too many people at risk if the wrong people knew. But I’m not here to hurt you. Or anyone, really. I promise you that.” 

Black spoke carefully, as if he already knew from his expression that Lime was aware of what he was and had no need to say anything directly. It seemed like it was just to be careful that no one else understood, if the glances to Blue and the vitals monitor were any indication. Lime bit his bottom lip before shaking his head slightly, trying to organize his feelings of Black and his knee-jerk reaction to the idea of Daemons and resolve the inner conflict. 

When the public became aware of Daemons, it had stirred a lot of dark memories in the human collective unconscious. Old religious and folk tales of wicked fairies, evil devils, and terrifying angels — even the battles of ‘gods’ over human souls — solidified into a clear warning of what to expect if the alien race cared to be aggressive. People were frightened and like frightened people throughout history, those that did not retreat to hide started preparing to attack.

It was lucky that the Daemons were clearly prepared for that reaction; perhaps had been preparing for it for thousands of years. There ended up not being a war. The Daemons had made clear it wasn’t one the humans could win, regardless. 

Of course, humans weren’t ready to just shrug and laugh it off and make friends the way they had done with the rather placid and insular Psychrolutes. The Psychrolutes had nothing to do with their part of the galaxy and frankly didn’t want to aside from finding information on the sciences worthy of exchanging. Even if only a quarter the stories about Daemons were true, it wasn’t as if the Daemons were faultless caretakers of the human race throughout time. There was always the suspicion that the Daemons would have another shift in culture and decide to rid themselves of the humans that they had studied, toyed with, loved, and experimented on throughout all of human history; finally bored of them.

Black must have known all of that. It wasn’t surprising that Black had kept this a secret and had likely intended to continue that for as long as possible. 

But… 

Maybe Lime was a foolish human, beguiled by Daemonic lures… but he decided he trusted Black. A tiny part of him told him to stay wary, but he thought that sentiment wasn’t wrong either.

Honestly, it was easy to accept it. At least, to accept _Black_. It wasn’t that Lime was some sort of saint or fool, either. It simply felt natural to do. Both from his basic trust of Black and also because, well… he’d never been someone who was particularly scared of the Daemons to begin with.

Throughout his life, Lime had consumed a great deal of old media from during the infancy of space travel. Demons were often portrayed positively then during that period between old religious horror and post-reveal tension. There were loads of stories where demons weren’t just potential allies, but romantic leads and even the heroes of the stories. Now the idea was treated as something of a taboo, written about furtively under internet pseudonyms or disguised as stories about fictional fantasy races. But he’d always had a fondness for the time humans wanted to embrace the idea of living in harmony, or at least symbiotic peace, with other kinds of people. 

That could just be the work of Daemonic psy-ops campaigns, but he thought it wouldn’t work so well if humans hadn’t been drawn to the idea themselves.

Maybe if he hadn’t had time to get to know Black before he discovered where he came from he might have defaulted to fear. But the most he felt was nervousness that came from engaging with the unknown and a bit of caution about not necessarily being able to understand Black’s mindset and motivations. That wasn’t materially different from how he felt about interacting with other humans. So why get hung up on it?

Lime lifted his eyes and offered a lopsided smile. “One day… I’d like to see you as you really are,” he said softly, mindful of Blue on the bed nearby.

Black’s expression relaxed and his eyes bloomed again to that rare yellow. Slowly, his eyes pinned to Lime’s as he gave Lime plenty of time to pull away, Black drew Lime’s hands up his lips to press kisses to the tips of his fingers. Each kiss made Lime’s heart do a crazy leap in his chest that made him feel giddy. Lime was incredibly glad that the material of his gloves was designed to transmit sensations cleanly. He was even more glad he’d had time to wash them.

“Later… when there’s a better time for this… I really want to talk more about… everything,” Black said, his deep voice rough with emotion as he then placed Lime’s hands over his heart so he could feel how strongly it beat under his palms.

Lime blushed and lowered his gaze as he tried to gather his thoughts. He appreciated that Black wasn’t rushing him, but… he wouldn’t have minded if Black had let himself get carried away either. Just realizing that there were very specific ideas springing to mind of exactly what he would have been happy if Black did made Lime’s color deepen and he shyly tucked his face against Black’s chest. 

He wasn’t completely inexperienced with romance — or even with sex — but Black was right. It wasn’t a good time for it and he really, really should not be only _just now_ fully appreciating how attractive Black was, how large his hands were, how — 

The treated glass that separated the balcony from the laboratory rattled hard as the storm winds thrashed angrily at them, as if trying to get inside. The two men broke apart to look, concerned that the glass might actually shatter from the force. The large telescope outside was locked into a position, but it rattled as much as the windows. Once they were reassured everything was continuing to hold, they looked back at each other, Lime’s hands still pressed against Black’s chest.

“You asked earlier about how we know about Impostors…” Black said after a somewhat charged silence. It was pretty clear he was forcing himself to stay on track, even though his eyes still blazed yellow and his deep voice was still husky.

“Are they Dae—” Lime stopped himself from completing the word.

Black shook his head. “…It’s okay. With that racket, I don’t think even Blue could hear us. But to answer you, no, they’re not Daemons — not really. There’s a longer answer, but the short one is that there was a parasitic creature that we call Beelzebubs. They weren’t native to our home planet either, but adapted themselves to Daemons, preying on our dead to both feed and take bipedal form. When there weren’t enough suitable bodies, they made them.”

“Beelzebubs… That’s…” It was familiar and before Black could explain, he remembered. “The Lord of the Flies. A demon king, I think? So that came from your people?”

“Yes.” There was a pause, showing where Black would normally have left things, but then he continued. Lime could tell that Black was pushing himself to speak more than he normally would — clearly wanting him to understand. He appreciated that. “The humans remember the name and associate it with the demon of gluttony in some mythologies. That’s close enough to the truth. They consumed endlessly if left unchecked. If the corpses they inhabited were fresh enough, they could even pass as a living Daemon for awhile. We’ve been trying to destroy them for thousands of years… We thought we had. That’s the only reason we revealed ourselves to humans — we thought the biggest threat in the galaxy was defeated and it would be safe to connect with our cousins.”

Lime felt his face go through a lot of expressions before settling on one. He was pretty sure it was mostly dismay, but certainly there was confusion and a touch of doubt. “I… see. So they’re not destroyed. Then Impostors are Beelzebubs?”

“Unfortunately… not exactly. If they were, it would be easier to deal with them. It seems as if they’ve adapted.” He paused before firmly saying. “They had help adapting.”

It took him a few seconds, but when the connection was made, Lime flinched. “You mean MIRA?”

“Every sign points to that, yes. They’ve been digging up old battlefields… like here, on Polus. We think they’ve been uncovering samples of Beelzebub genetic material and… experimenting on it.”

“They did it intentionally? Why would they do that? Are they releasing Impostors on us to see what happens? Did they purposefully trap us here just to kill us?” Lime could feel his voice strain with horror and outrage.

Black released one of Lime’s hands so he could cup his face and stroke back into his hair, trying to reassure him. “That’s unclear. Probably not. Beelzebubs aren’t easy to control. However it started, it doesn’t seem like the Impostors stayed under their control. All we know is that they don’t need corpses anymore — with human bodies, they can just… infect them, leaving a piece of themselves in the body to grow and take over. It’s… extremely disturbing for us. Impostors are more difficult to detect than Beelzebubs and no longer have to replace their bodies as the old one… wears out.” 

He said the last bit delicately, likely taking in how unwell Lime was feeling hearing all of this.

A few things clicked into place in his head. “Is that why you were downloading those files?”

“Yes. The terminal was originally in the Medbay of one of the massacres. If there were scans of anyone before and after being infected… it could provide a lot of information.”

“What… do I look out for?” Lime asked feebly. 

The other man drew a breath, running his hands over Lime’s shoulders and down to hold him by the arms. It came to him like a bolt of lightning that since Lime had decided to accept him, Black hadn’t stopped touching him. He felt a flush of pleasure at that thought that warmed him from the inside out; chasing away the sickly feeling to the edges of his consciousness.

“There haven’t been many opportunities to study Impostors yet. In the rare cases they’ve been killed, other parties have taken control of the corpse and haven’t exactly been sharing their findings. But… keep an eye out for fast-healing wounds that leave behind ropey, raised scars; usually of an odd coloration for the skin tone. Impostors seem to always have these scars along their torsos, generally along the belly. That seems to be where the tumor can be inserted and grow without being detected.”

Black’s hands traveled now to cup over his hands — though whether that was for Lime’s comfort or his own, Lime couldn’t say.

“What about behavior?” Lime recognized if there was an obvious tell, Black and White could have probably pointed at the Impostor in their midst and called them out, but Lime hoped maybe he might know something useful regardless.

“In some ways, Impostors are worse than Beelzebubs. Beelzebubs weren’t much different from proto-sentient tumors, interested in nothing but their basic needs and employing not much more than animal cunning in their own survival. Impostors… are people.” Black hesitated, looking over at Blue again before quietly adding. “All of the Impostors we’re aware of, however, have the mindsets of killers. Unlike Beelzebubs, they aren’t hunting to suit their needs for survival… they do it for fun. When this is no longer fun for them… _that’s_ when we need to worry the most.”

On that ominous note, the klaxon for the seismic stabilizers went off again.


	13. Hot and Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black has a pretty good moment until he doesn't.

“Again?” Lime cried out, aghast. There was an offended note in his tone as well.

Black tensed, automatically drawing Lime against him as he thought furiously. Lime wasn’t going to like what he was about to suggest. “We both need to try to head to the stabilizers. We can’t count on the idea that someone else will get them.”

“If we both go, Blue—” Lime began, squirming until he could look properly up at his face.

“Blue will be fine. Like I said — the Impostor is toying with us all for its own amusement. What would be fun in killing someone who doesn’t even know it’s happening?” It was blunt — probably too blunt considering Lime winced — but with only a breath of hesitation, Lime nodded.

That was all Black needed. He took Lime’s hand, dragged him to the table they’d left their helmets on, and put his own on. Once Lime had done the same he hurried him down the hall, speaking the entire way as he offered his hand to Lime again. His heart warmed when Lime automatically took it.

“I want us to stay together as much as possible. If someone’s at the first terminal, we’ll both continue ahead to the second. If no one’s there…” His gut churned and he grit his teeth. The difference between the first time this happened and the second was on the surface no different, but knowing an Impostor was playing with them was different from just suspecting it. Setting off the stabilizers again was done for a reason, and it likely wasn’t for something as simple as a time-wasting prank. “If no one’s there, you stay and I’ll go ahead.”

“Okay,” Lime agreed, moving a little ahead to unlatch the door out. 

In moments, they’d be out in the howling blizzard and it was unlikely Lime would be able to hear him, even through the comm units in their helmets. Black stopped and turned Lime to face him, hands restlessly moving over Lime’s shoulders as if memorizing the shape of him. It was good that Lime’s bio-suit was a color that would be relatively easy to make out in the whirling wind and snow…

“Lime… If we’re separated, be careful. Come back to Medbay right after the stabilizers are reset. Hold tight to the rails on the platform. Don’t go off alone with anyone but White. He’s the safest. It’s unlikely Impostors can infect Daemons. The Beelzebubs had thousands of years to adapt to us and didn’t manage it — I doubt MIRA managed it in less than a decade.”

There was a sort of strangled, but affectionate laugh from the other man. “Yes mum,” Lime said. Though the visor was down, in his imagination Black could almost see that impish little curl of a smile Lime had shown him in O2. The thought of it sent a lance of heat through his body.

Uttering a soft Daemonic curse under his breath, Black pulled off Lime’s helmet in a rough one-handed movement as he pressed the visor release on his own. He had a brief glimpse of Lime’s surprised expression before he kissed the other man fiercely, gently pushing him against the door as he fit their bodies together. Lime squirmed under him — but to get closer, gripping at the straps on his sleeves and chest as he returned the kiss with every bit of the hunger Black felt.

Lime tasted of the tea he usually had at their mandated break times. Today’s tea of choice was apparently lemon and honey — a fresh and sweet flavor that suited the man perfectly. Seeking more, Black’s tongue teased at the part of Lime’s lips until Lime made a little sound and opened for him, letting him explore. 

The other man’s hands clumsily tried to reach for the back of Black’s head, likely seeking to grip at his hair. Thwarted by the helmet, Lime made a little growl of frustration, something that lit a fire in Black even as he chuckled softly against Lime’s lips. Lime was more than just warm and pliant beneath him — he was hot and eager, his body yearning towards Black’s in pursuit of getting closer. Black tilted his head and deepened the kiss until he felt Lime begin to melt.

It wasn’t a situation where he could succumb to his desires. They’d taken so long already. Too long, really. Precious seconds were ticking down, but Black couldn’t bring himself to regret a single one of them in exchange for these few moments together. If he could have, Black would have dragged Lime to the nearest private space and begun pulling the bio-suits off of them both — at least until they could touch skin on skin somewhere other than their lips. This long kiss would have to sate them until it was a better time to indulge. 

But even this small interlude was interrupted.

There was a horrific metal groan nearby that jolted them both from their torrid kiss. A loud crash made the floor beneath them shudder and then what sounded like a concentration of hissing flames beating against the door to their left — the door that went out to a fenced-in excavation site. They pulled apart to look at the door and then each other.

“The… the rocket?” Lime asked between ragged pants for breath.

Black pushed Lime’s helmet into his hands so he could use both of his own to grasp Lime by the face and kiss him again, his tongue flicking briefly between those tempting lips before retreating again. “Most likely… Nothing we can do about it. We’d better get the stabilizers going again, though…” His tone was regretful, making silent apologies for beginning to end this without even addressing it. But even as he apologized, he still didn’t move, instead tipping Lime’s head back to kiss beneath his jaw and press a last kiss to the pulse in his neck. He was gratified to hear Lime utter a soft moan as he sagged back against the door behind him.

“Mmhh— That’s… really… How am I going to _walk_ after this?” Lime complained weakly.

Black chuckled in reply, helping him get his helmet back on. “Once we open the doors, I think it’ll be better than ten cold showers for cooling us down. Are you ready?”

Again, the ground shook hard beneath their feet and in the distance they could hear the shivery sound of glass vials rattling against each other in the laboratory. Rather than answering aloud, Lime just snapped his visor closed and pressed the release button on the door. Snow and wind roared through, sending chunks of ice skidding halfway down the length of the hall in an instant.

Black closed his own visor, took Lime’s hand, and lead the way out towards the first platform.

ඞ。。。。。

It was a slog moving ahead — even for Black. He tried to use his larger body to block the wind to make it easier for Lime to move, but with the unpredictable way the wind tore through Polus 339, there was no way to actually do anything more than try. Gusts hit like shoving hands from every angle — sometimes at the same time. 

Snow had been driven into awkward piles that seemed to sift like the sands of a moving desert. Black half expected a small mountain’s worth to drop on them out of nowhere, but for now he was just glad the winds were too strong for enough snow to gather on the ground and make their trek all the more difficult.

Though the first platform was only a few yards away from the door they had left, it took about five minutes for Black to forge their way there. He was not surprised, but he was unhappy to see that none of the others were already there, holding the button down and waiting for the other terminal to be activated. 

He helped Lime to the platform and firmly set Lime’s hands on each side of the railing.

Lime turned his head to look back at him, hesitating. There was no way to see Lime’s expression through the visor in the lighting, but Black wondered if Lime wasn’t feeling that same anxiety at parting ways as he was. Since it was too dangerous to lift their visors to exchange another kiss, he just leaned in to rest his visor against Lime’s for a moment before he stepped back, gently giving Lime’s back a little nudge.

This time, Lime continued forward, pausing as the rock shelf beneath them shuddered again and the metal platform vibrated from it. In the valley below, Black’s sharp ears caught the sounds of rocks crashing into each other as they were dislodged from the cliff-face.

Black would have liked to have stayed until Lime made it to the other end of the walkway and pressed the reset panel, but he knew he needed to head to the other platform now. If someone was already nearly there, then he won’t have gotten far away from Lime when it was reset. And if there _wasn’t_ someone already there, he needed to get there as soon as he could.

It still took a lot for him to turn away from Lime’s receding back, but holding the other man’s figure in mind helped him focus his energy appropriately. Without having to keep a pace Lime could match, Black was able to force himself ahead at a more punishing march. Between the limited light of the head and shoulder lamps and the driving snow, it was difficult to see more than a foot around him. He felt blind and deaf. If the Impostor was stalking him, he’d probably be hurt before he realized it was there.

As he strained his eyes and ears, trying to stay alert for the slightest hint of an attack, the klaxon continued to sound. 

Between each croak of the alarm, he hoped the next one wouldn’t come so he could turn back and retrieve Lime. But when he drew even with the Security/O2 complex and the klaxon still blared, he put to rest that hope. A few steps later, he could see the empty platform in the distance and grimly made his way up to it. To his relief, the panel lit up cyan and the alarm turned off without incident.

Almost reflexively, Black checked the log. He didn’t give it as in-depth of a review as the first time — he just wanted to confirm that it didn’t get set off by ‘normal’ circumstances. It didn’t surprise him in the least when no such indication was made. Black released a little snarl of a sound before he slammed the panel shut and turned back.

To him, that indicated that MIRA may have given the Impostors some Daemon genetic information as well — whether intentionally or accidentally. Human saboteurs couldn’t get away with something so well hidden — not with machines like these. Beelzebubs didn’t have a natural affinity with technology. But Daemons did. He and White could have set the seismic stabilizers off from anywhere in Polus 339 if they wanted to. It would be a foolish waste of their bio-energy, but it could be done. He could only hope that if that was what the Impostor was doing, it was weakening itself every time it did that. 

It _had_ to be.

Black stopped as he stepped onto the catwalk that bridged from the cliffside to the seismic stabilizer’s terminal as an unwelcome thought struck him. If there was Daemonic genetic material in Impostors, _could_ they do the same thing to Daemons as they could to humans and take over their bodies as well? 

The problem was there was no way for him to even begin to speculate. He wasn’t a specialist in that sort of research, so it would be nothing more than a wild guess. Experts had said it was impossible, but that was before there was evidence they might have Daemonic abilities. 

His heart pounded as he gripped the railing. If he’d just encouraged Lime to potentially go with a lurking threat… But… no. He was pretty certain that at the very least, White was safe. It would be difficult for the Impostor to go up against White to begin with and if it was weakening itself, then it was even more unlikely. Plus, the transformation phase was too noticeable. Black would have noticed if White had been infected. 

He’d be cautious with anyone else, but he wasn’t going to jump at shadows either. Sowing the seeds of doubt was how the Impostors seemed to work — inciting people to turn on each other while they sat back and enjoyed the opportunities in the chaos. 

Black shoved the worry to the side and kept moving.

When he was passing quickly by the side of the building, he caught a glow through the window. A glow that was definitely not there earlier when he made his way to the platform. It must have happened in the last few minutes. As he peered inside he could see that a light in the Security room was on, casting the shadow of a person on the floor of the hallway outside. A glance to the corner of the building showed the flashing red light that said someone was watching the cameras.

There was something about it — about the _stillness_ of that figure — that made his pulse pick up with concern. 

It felt wrong.

Black gritted his teeth, trying not to grind them as he tried to make a choice between investigating and reuniting with Lime. If he was wrong and nothing was amiss it would only take a minute to verify who it was and that they were okay. If he was right… he might end up saving one of the other crewmates. People he thought of as tentative friends. It could even have been White.

It was those thoughts that made him hurry forward to unlock the door to the building and step inside.

“Hello?” he asked, his voice a little winded from spending the last fifteen minutes or so fighting with the winds.

“Yeah — in here,” a muffled voice replied.

There was something odd about it and the way it echoed down the hall from the direction of Security. He couldn’t place which man it belonged to, other than it wasn’t White, Lime, or Blue. It could have just been his sensitive ears having trouble with how long he’d been exposed to the klaxon and winds outside, and surely having the helmet on didn’t help. 

But it still made him pause.

The light on the floor flickered as if the camera feed was being flipped through rapidly, perhaps searching for something to show up. His instincts were still indicating something was wrong, so he stayed in place and just listened. But all he could hear were the winds rattling at the windows, making the pre-fab buildings outside screech. The soft buzzing of electronics continued with the faint clicks of the cameras cycling through feeds.

A little clod of slush slid off of the shoulder of his bio-suit to land with a soft _pat_ on the tile floor. That was what goaded him to continue and check things out. It wouldn’t take but a few steps and then he could return to Lime’s side. In fact, he could jog through the building and exit out through the hall by O2, spend a minute or two outside cutting across to Admin, and go to Medbay by passing through Specimen. It would be much faster and easier than fighting the wind and snow, even if it was a ridiculously roundabout route.

Making the plans as a way to reassure himself didn’t do shit about the sinking feeling in his stomach, but he proceeded anyway.

As he made his way down the hall, his eyes passed over the cordoned off hole in the floor outside of Security. The flickering light had briefly made it look like something had moved there. When he looked inside Security, he saw the top of Red’s helmet peeking over the back of the office chair.

Black stalled in the doorway. 

The screens kept flickering as the camera feed kept cycling. No pauses. No greeting, though Black hadn’t tried to hide the sounds of his footsteps. Neither Red nor the chair moved at all, in fact. Every cell of his body was screaming at Black to leave, but he stayed rooted to the spot, hoping for anything that would relieve that horrible suspicion.

He was about to speak when a drop of liquid fell to the carpet next to Red’s feet with a muted _pat_. A moment later, a second drop joined the first, this time with a wetter sound. Black didn’t need to open his visor to know it was blood. The dark stain on the carpet grew as he watched.

Black crossed the room in a hurry, turning the chair around to check on Red, on guard for an attack he felt sure wasn’t going to come. The other man slumped at the movement, his head lolling to the side; no longer propped up enough to stay in place. A hole had been torn in the front of his suit, a great puncture wound somewhere between his lower ribs and stomach. His hands had been tied together and placed over the wound with what looked like a towel that was now soaked a darker red than his bio-suit.

Quickly, Black checked Red’s pulse, finding it weak but seemingly stable. It didn’t look like anything vital was punctured, though of course a hole of that size was never a _minor_ wound whether it was somewhere immediately fatal or not.

He was reaching for his friend, intending on carrying him to Medbay with him, when the first blow hit him from behind.


	14. Blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime returns to the Laboratory complex after resetting the seismic stabilizer.

The warmth of Black’s kiss stayed with Lime as a comfort, even as the heat from it was quickly whipped away by the snowstorm outside. It was like Black was still there, reassuring and encouraging him as he gripped the railings of the platform and tried not to let the winds rip him away. 

While he pressed his hand to the panel and waited for the other terminal to activate, Lime ran through what he and Black had agreed upon: reset the terminals, return to Medbay, try to reunite… and trust White over anyone else. 

It was the last one Lime had any qualms about. It wasn’t so much that he _didn’t_ trust White as much as he just _wanted_ to trust everyone. Granted, Yellow was so paranoid right now that he was accusing anyone who looked at him sideways, so maybe it really was a good idea not to go somewhere alone with Yellow. But surely there was some awful misunderstanding and nothing was wrong with any of them.

The longer he waited, the less hopeful Lime felt, though. He knew that he just didn’t want to face the idea that someone he trusted had killed Tan and nearly done the same to Blue. 

Since he didn’t want to think about that topic anymore, Lime closed his eyes and tried to remember that amazing, bone-melting kiss in the hall. It helped heat his body up a little again as he blushed deeply, which was welcome as the icy winds were making him feel like he wasn’t wearing a bio-suit at all. 

Lime knew very well that pursuing the feelings he and Black seemed to share wasn’t going to be easy. And that was before taking into account the fact that Black wasn’t human. In his sphere of humanity, so little was really commonly understood about Daemons that he had no way of knowing what he was getting into. He was pretty sure the rumor that Daemons ate their mates after sex was ridiculous fiction, for example, but he couldn’t take for granted that they both agreed on what a relationship should function like.

Some people would say that was a good reason not to get involved. But Lime’s response would be that even humans didn’t universally agree on what relationships should be like even from within the same culture group. It would always take discussion to make sure everyone was on the same page. 

He wanted to try. 

Even before the kiss, once he’d recognized his own interest in Black he was prepared to see if they could make something of it. Unless he was mistaken, he thought Black was ready for that too — and Black probably already had a better grasp on the things that needed addressing than he did.

The panel in front of him finally flashed cyan and Lime looked up. It registered only belatedly that he could leave — the stabilizers were reset. It had felt like he’d stood there for an hour, though surely it wasn’t even half of that amount of time. As he slowly made his way back across the catwalk, Lime reflected that they were officially locked out from the geothermal power supply for another several hours, so all they could do was wait until the storm died down enough to let sunlight hit the solar panels.

Visibility was so low that if the Medbay complex wasn’t so close, he wouldn’t have been sure he’d get back to it. All he had to do was keep the cliffside to his left and walk until he found the building. But he had to huddle, arms clamped over his chest as he tucked forward and fought against the wind that was doing its hardest to drive him into the abyss. 

With Black’s help earlier, it had only taken a few minutes to get from the door to the platform. On his own, it took at least twice as long. He’d even been driven to his knees by a gust. Because of the near white-out conditions, he actually somehow passed the entry to the Medbay complex and had nearly walked smack into the big rock before realizing he was off-course. Thankfully, doubling back was easy. It was a relief to finally get to the door, unlock it, and stumble blindly inside.

Hands caught him, making Lime utter a strangled sound of fright, pulling away slightly. They weren’t Black’s hands.

Lime looked up and saw Brown was the one supporting him, helping him settle properly on his feet which had slid on the snow and ice that was caked into the tread of his boots. “All right?” Brown asked somewhat breathlessly as if he’d run down the hall to catch him. Brown wore his helmet, so Lime couldn’t read his expression, but he clearly sounded concerned.

“Uh — y-yeah, sorry. Thanks.” Lime straightened and stood there as he awkwardly waited for Brown to remove his hands. After a moment his friend did, but it felt so weirdly lingering that Lime’s lurking paranoia surfaced again, remembering Black’s warning. His desires to trust his friend and take all due caution fought with each other as he just stared.

Brown obviously noticed and uttered a nervous laugh, lifting his hands palms up to show they were empty. “Something wrong? You don’t suspect me, do you?”

“I don’t suspect anyone, Brown… You know that,” Lime automatically responded. Right as he said it, though, he wasn’t sure if it was true anymore.

It seemed like Brown didn’t think anything was wrong with his tone, though. It provoked Brown to chuckle, his body language visibly relaxing. “Yeah, I know,” he replied with cheerful relief. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah… I was just out there for awhile holding down the activation panel until someone got the other one… Cold out there,” Lime said, trying to put a lightness in his tone. His voice came out a little flat in spite of his attempts as he suddenly wondered why no one else had come to activate the panels.

“Ah — yeah, I’ll bet! Sorry Lime,” Brown said sheepishly, lifting a hand to his own helmet as if he were trying to run his fingers through his hair. “I was down in Specimen doing a task. I was sure everyone else was closer than me, so I didn’t even try going.”

“It’s fine,” Lime automatically murmured. There was another awkward pause as they each waited for the other to say something more.

“Sooo… uh…” Brown said after a few moments. When it was clear Lime was neither moving away from the door nor ready to try to make conversation, Brown continued. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Mmn!” Lime made a sound of agreement, grateful that he kept his visor down too so Brown couldn’t tell that his expression was a little weird. He hated this feeling — of finding the idea of putting his back to Brown frightening. It was only hours ago where he would put Brown at top three to have watching his back. “I’m just waiting for Black. He went to the other terminal.”

“Aaah!” Brown used the _I am enlightened_ tone and a smile was clear in his voice. “Then that’ll take awhile. The wind’s awful out there. Let’s check in on Blue while you wait, yeah?”

It was a very reasonable suggestion, but it made his skin prickle. He wasn’t sure why other than how on edge he was. But he also didn’t think that he could refuse without being rude — or, rather, without it being obvious he was wary of his friend — so he just nodded. “Good idea. Go on ahead. I’m still sloughing off the snow. I don’t want you to slip on my puddles.” He made sure to put a wry, self-depreciating tone on that. As if everything were normal. 

The excuse wasn’t a lie either — no longer having to fight against the sub-zero winds and prioritize heating the extremities and core, the bio-suit was able to thoroughly warm itself again, bringing his body temperature back up to something much more comfortable. As a result, the suit was melting the accumulated snow and ice.

“Wow, yeah. I didn’t realize, but you really are just making a big puddle aren’t you? The suits are usually so good about not holding that shit, but it must have wedged snow into every nook and cranny on you!” Brown sounded impressed. “I’m pretty much done with my tasks — how about you?”

Brown turned and lead the way down the hall toward Medbay, talking to him over his shoulder and setting an easy pace. Lime followed cautiously, keeping a reasonable amount of distance between them. Not that he really knew what a ‘reasonable’ distance was if something were actually wrong.

“I have a couple more,” Lime said.

“Yeah? I can go with you and help!” Brown replied. “My last task might be on the way.”

They had reached the end of the hall and Brown stopped at the doorway. Lime made a big show of stomping his feet to knock the last of the melting snow off of his bio-suit and boots before making a motion with his head to indicate Brown should go in. Brown made a little sound of amusement before heading in ahead of him.

A part of him felt stupid for having any suspicion of Brown. Brown was his friend and he wasn’t doing anything weird right now. Lime was just being silly earlier, right? But another part of him whispered, _It doesn’t matter. He’s your friend, so he should understand being wary under the circumstances._

It made him feel sick, honestly.

Ahead of him, Brown removed his helmet with an exaggerated sigh of relief and a toss of his spiky hair. “Aah! That feels better. I’ll put it back on when we head out again,” he announced, dropping his helmet on the lab workbench as he passed it. The movement was so casual and natural that Lime almost didn’t question it.

But then Brown looked back at him with a smile that seemed… expectant. And Lime’s little feeling of wariness grew a little more.

“What do you think our chances are?” Lime asked softly, rubbing nervously at his own arm as if he were trying to warm himself. He pretended he didn’t notice that Brown probably wanted him to remove his helmet too.

“Mmnh…” Brown made a thoughtful sound, running his fingers through his hair in his habitual way as he made sure the spikes laid back properly. “I think we’re fine, right? I don’t really buy what the others said. I think Tan and Blue attacked each other. I don’t think it’s an Impostor at all.”

“You… don’t?” Lime asked, confused. 

That there was no Impostor was certainly what he _hoped_ , but he wasn’t really sure that there was any way that Blue attacked and killed Tan. Even in self defense, he didn’t think Blue would rip a man in half and hide the other half of his body. He also was pretty sure that with his wounds, Blue couldn’t have gone from Electrical to, well, literally a foot away from where they were now, lock himself in a cabinet from the outside, and leave no trace.

“Sure. It doesn’t add up!” Brown said earnestly, looking over at him as if it were obvious. “Tan attacked Blue and stuffed him in here. Cleaned up behind himself. Then he was trying to create an alibi by going to Electrical so when we all met up there it’d be like he was with us the whole time. The winds probably snapped a cable, cut him in half, and flung the other half of his body somewhere and we just haven’t found it yet. Bing-bang-boom.”

Lime felt his expression go stiff and somewhat dismayed. It was _just_ plausible enough that if Brown had suggested it earlier, he would have latched onto it with all of his heart rather than entertain other possibilities. He didn’t know Tan very well, after all, and Brown did. Who knew what might make him snap? And Blue… well, he had a way with people that put their backs up even when he was trying to be friendly. 

But Blue had said the word “Impostor” before he’d slipped into unconsciousness. And Black and White seemed to be at Polus purely to research what MIRA was doing and see if the company had somehow created Impostors. MIRA HQ itself seemed nearly certain it was an Impostor. That it was anything other than an Impostor seemed too unlikely to him knowing all of that.

“Don’t listen to him,” a voice growled from the little lobby area that connected the Laboratory, the bathroom, and the northern Decontamination chamber.

“White,” Lime said, surprised to see the man.

White stood in the doorway, his helmet tucked under his arm as he made his way into the room, his grey eyes glaring with heat at Brown. There was no sign of his round glasses. His typically smooth platinum hair was no longer in its usual sleek order either. Instead, it looked as if he’d had to run outside without his helmet and the wind had styled it into something wild that suited him much better. With White’s slashing cheekbones and burning gaze, he had a sort of raw, untamed sensuality that made Lime blush to have noticed at all. Now there was no question to him that White was also a Daemon, rather than Black’s human accomplice.

“Something wrong?” Brown asked, an odd lilt to his voice and a slight twist to his lips that suggested either he was trying not to laugh or trying not to snarl. Lime couldn’t tell.

“He’s the Impostor,” White accused coldly. “Come here, Lime. Don’t let him get any closer.” From the tension in White’s lithe form, the reason the helmet was off was probably because he was prepared to use it as a weapon if necessary.

Lime released a rather hurt breath. Oddly, he didn’t doubt White at all. He just uttered a sad-sounding, “How do you know?”

“Because we found the rest of Tan,” White said through gritted teeth. “He was tucked into his bunk in his room. A sick joke.”

“Shit!” Brown said, his eyebrows going up. There was a gleam in his eyes that could have either been a flash of insight or a more worrying excitement. “Lime — don’t listen to him! It’s not me! _It must be him!_ ”

White’s response was a dismissive hiss. He didn’t take his eyes off of Brown for an instant. His gaze was calculating every movement Brown made. “…Lime. Did Black explain to you what to look for on an Impostor?”

“…Yeah,” Lime replied warily. 

“I can prove I’m not an Impostor. I’ll bet he can’t.”

“Haah?” Brown asked, clearly both genuinely interested and confused. “How’s that?”

“You unzip your bio-suit and I’ll unzip mine — all the way open down to the waist. I bet you won’t,” White goaded, his voice soft and almost seductive.

Brown frowned, his lips pressing tightly together. “I don’t want any part of your weird kink shit, _Impostor_.” White didn’t respond in words. He just laughed with such cold disdain that Brown dropped the accusation immediately. “Then… You’re just trying to get me to expose myself without the bio-suit so you can attack me and kill me…”

“I knew he wouldn’t,” White said scathingly, his free hand going to almost casually unbuckle the straps from his throat down to his waist. When he’d unbuckled the last he hooked a finger into the ring of the zipper pull to begin to tug it down. Between the gaps in the suit, Lime could see the other man’s skin was bare to the navel. Lime was grateful he still had his helmet on — thanks to Brown putting the thought in his head, he was red as a tomato. White didn’t seem aware that there was anything erotic about what he was doing — or simply didn’t care. “If you’re worried about me attacking you, take a few steps back towards the window. I’ll bet Lime could still see from that far whether you had signs of being an Impostor.”

“Lime—” Brown protested, his eyes darting to him. “You know he’s _got_ to be the Impostor, right?! I take back what I said earlier — it’s got to be him!”

“Brown…” Lime said weakly, willing his eyes not to tear up. Even if White was wrong and Brown was innocent, his faith in his friend was severely shaken. 

He already knew deep down what the answer was though.

“Fuck! Fine!” Clearly annoyed, Brown moved a little away from the laboratory workbench, taking a step back as he began to unbuckle the straps on his own bio-suit. But even Lime could see he was moving to the side, lining up more directly with White. There was something about the way he was moving that brought to mind a restless predator angling for an advantage. “Now what?” He didn’t open his bio-suit to show his body.

“I’ll open my bio-suit to show off my skin. Mine won’t be all scarred up — but I’ll bet yours will,” White replied coolly.

“…Lime, you know I was in that accident a few years back,” Brown reminded him sharply. Lime nodded. Brown had mentioned it a few times to explain why he was so private about showing skin. Lime had never questioned Brown’s body shyness — there was no reason to.

“Well, Lime also knows what the wounds are meant to look like. If they don’t look like the description, it’s no big deal right? C’mere, Lime… you won’t be able to see him from that angle.”

“Don’t, Lime! He just wants to get you closer to attack!” Brown warned.

Lime hesitated just a moment. He might _want_ to trust Brown, but if he didn’t trust White here, he thought he’d regret it more. “…he’s right, though. I can’t see you from here. You moved… I’ll be careful, okay?”

Brown reluctantly nodded, looking extremely disgruntled. “…Fine. Since Lime wants to see too, I’ll show you. Gotta warn, though — it’s ugly.”

“You know I wouldn’t judge you for that,” Lime said softly, blinking away tears as he moved closer to White, eyes staring at Brown’s torso. “…we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Brown laughed, but it had an odd tone to it. Not the sound of someone who felt betrayed or bitter or even angry — but someone who was laughing at a private joke. It made Lime wince and look up at his friend’s face. “Yeah — fine. How are we doing this? Count of three?”

“Sure,” White said, handing his helmet to Lime without taking his eyes away from Brown. “Hold that for me, will you? Don’t drop it. I’m going to need both hands for this.”

“Okay,” Lime said, clutching the helmet to his chest as he started shivering at the sudden spike in tension between the other two men.

“One,” White began, fingers sliding along the edges of his bio-suit as he prepared to show his presumably flawless chest.

“Two,” Brown picked up, a little twist on his lips and narrowing of his eyes showing he was getting keyed up.

Everything after that happened almost all at once. Both started to say, “Three.” But at different times, they each started to move before finishing the word.

Lime saw Brown yank his clothes free, showing an awful, thick scar stretch from side to side on his stomach. It looked straight out of a horror movie — like a giant leech had been sewn into his skin. It looked veiny and pulsed once before ripping in half to reveal a maw in his torso. Lime didn’t even have time to scream when he saw a long black tongue leap out of the gap.

Almost simultaneously, White burst into flames — or, it’s better to say he erupted into a ball of light that almost burned on Lime’s skin and sent spangles into his vision, even though he only saw it out of the corner of his eye. The entire room lit up with a silvery-white light. The monster that was Brown screeched and twisted as it fell backwards to the floor, the black tentacle-like tongue flailing wildly in the air as the rest of his body collapsed.

Lime felt strong arms wrap around him and an instant later he felt like he was flying. His last glimpse of Brown was the black tentacle clumsily lashing at the side of the laboratory workbench as if trying one last time to grab them before it slid limply down to join the rest of Brown’s body.


	15. Near-Sighted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime gets a briefing from White.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The longest chapter in the story so far, fyi. Also, you didn’t miss a chapter — we’re sticking with Lime’s POV!

Lime could be said to have expected any number of things to have happened during the confrontation between White and Brown in the Laboratory. What had _actually_ happened had not been anywhere in his scope of possibilities. 

He’d heard that Impostors were monsters, but he didn’t expect it to be the _exact same_ monster that had been ripped from that former crewmate’s interstellar nightmares and haunted him by proxy ever since. Seeing it in person was so traumatic that he almost took no notice of White’s own actions, simply clinging one-handed to his rescuer as he trembled with shock and fear.

When Lime came out of it, he found himself in the Office break room having been deposited on the edge of the slightly beat up wooden table like an inconvenient toddler. He lifted his gaze from the helmet he was still clutching in his hands and blankly watched as White pulled the curtains tightly closed over the window. Not that anyone could have really seen much through it in the current conditions. 

He hadn’t even realized they’d gone outside the Medbay complex.

Lime slowly lifted a hand and pressed the release on his helmet’s visor so it slid back. It was mostly a psychological thing, but it usually helped people calm down if they didn’t feel trapped and could breathe air that didn’t come through a filter. He needed that right now.

White turned back to him, his suit still unzipped to the waist, his skin both flushed and pale from the cold, and his grey eyes still hot with intensity. Lime couldn’t help but stare. Even now there was something of a radiant light that was emitted from the other man’s body, gently lighting the otherwise dark room. Catching his look, White smirked and leaned in, using his fingers to lightly lift Lime’s chin.

“Hey — don’t look at me like that with Black around, Little Rabbit. He’d probably get jealous and I’d like to keep my body intact, thanks.”

“What the…” Lime said vaguely. “…what the —” Lime broke off, his mind reeling.

White tilted his head and politely waited, clearly curious as to what he was trying to ask.

“ _What the ever-loving fuck just happened_ ,” Lime asked as calmly as he could.

White offered a wide, wicked grin to him in reply. “Old Daemon trick. Glad to know it works on Impostors too — we’d’ve been in some shit if it didn’t.”

“But what did you _do?_ ” Lime insisted. “You just — exploded?!”

The other man chuckled and started zipping his bio-suit back up. “I suppose I kinda did. You know Daemons come in different types, right?” When Lime nodded stiffly, White smiled. “My kind… you humans would probably call us Lucifers. Light-bringers. It’s where the whole ‘halo’ concept comes from.”

“Angels,” Lime said, his voice strangled.

White smirked again, snapping the last strap on his bio-suit closed. “Sure. No wings, though. We don’t actually fly, in case you were about to ask. We’re just fast as hell when we want to be. Thankfully, one of the best ways to handle Beelzebubs is just to blind them and get the hell away. That’s when projectile weaponry comes in useful.”

“You could have been killed,” Lime stressed, remembering the last part of the lab confrontation. “The bio-suit may not be impenetrable, but at least it would have offered _some_ protection! What if you’d mistimed things and you got — got stabbed?”

The other man shrugged. “I took a calculated risk. The Impostor was so focused on me as a target, it didn’t think too hard about what I was going to do. I had its full attention, and that’s why it got a full eyeful of the light-vent. Bought us some time. But, look. That’s why I brought you here — we have a few minutes and you need to know some things, got it?”

Dazed, Lime nodded and offered the helmet back to the other man, which White took.

“We don’t know enough about Impostors to know for sure what their physical reaction to a Lucifer’s light-vent is. What I just did was supposed to be enough to incapacitate a Beelzebub for almost an hour and make them half-blind for at least twice that. The initial research puts the estimated Impostor downtime at closer to ten to fifteen minutes. If we’re lucky, it’ll be longer, but we have to expect that’s the best we’re going to get. How do you feel right now? Light spots? Headaches?”

“You realize that right now the only reason I’m not having a panic attack is because I’m not entirely certain this is really happening, right?” Lime asked.

“Yeah, sure. Later, have one all you want.”

“Thanks. I have an afterimage of you burned into my eyes and my head is spinning and I think I might throw up, but other than the afterimage, everything else is probably stress,” Lime obligingly reported.

White nodded. “That’s good. Seems pretty normal then. My guess is that whenever the Impostor recovers from the shock I gave it, it’s going to just go on the hunt — and it’ll probably play for keeps this time, not just play with its food. Do you understand?” Some of the White that Lime knew was back in his tone and expression as he spoke this time. Not the rogue angel thing he had going since he started shouting at Yellow in Medbay, but the cool and detached scientist persona Lime was more familiar with.

“You… don’t want me to think of the Impostor as ‘Brown’ anymore is what you’re saying,” Lime said. He hadn’t missed White’s use of ‘it’ rather than ‘him’.

The other man’s eyebrows shot up and he looked impressed. “Exactly. That’s not your friend anymore. That’s an Impostor. And it will kill you if you’re lucky. If you’re not, it’ll try to make you into an Impostor too. And I’m not going to deal with a broken-hearted Black either way, you follow?”

“Right back at you. He’d be upset if anything happened to you too,” Lime retorted.

White tilted his head and offered a ghost of a smile with a quirk of his brow. There was a pause as he seemed to organize his thoughts before speaking. “Don’t get the wrong idea about us. I know Tan and Yellow were writing fanfic about us all in their heads, but Black and I aren’t a thing and never were. No one here is my type — well, Blue is the closest, but I’m not into guys I can throw further than I can trust ‘em — and I think Black’s type is _specifically_ you.”

“That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be upset to lose you,” Lime insisted, gentling his tone. Then he let a little lopsided smile show on his lips. “You’re growing on me too, now that you’re not shooting ice daggers at me with your eyes whenever you look at me.”

The other man seemed startled into a laugh. “Huh. You know — I’m starting to get what he sees in you too, Little Rabbit. Good for him. Don’t say that to Black, though. I really _would_ like to keep my limbs intact.” White used his fingers to push his hair back before he pulled his helmet on, flicked open the visor, and straightened his shoulders. “Right. Impostors. If they’re anything like Beelzebubs, when it starts moving around, its vision is going to be limited to a little bit more than arm’s length around it. For safety’s sake, _stay the fuck away from it_. And if you happen to be anywhere in sight of it, try not to draw its attention. I _blinded_ it, not deafened it.”

White went to the window and very carefully pulled back the curtain half an inch to peer out into the whirling snow. By this time the slight glow that hovered around him was almost gone. He let the curtain fall closed and looked back again before continuing his lecture.

“Beelzebubs have had tongue-spears effective for up to ten feet — though the average was slightly more than half their body’s height. Who knows what MIRA did to that range. Just because it can’t see you doesn’t mean it can’t aim. They’re kind of like chameleons that way, only instead of having a sticky tip on their tongue, it’s a stabby tip. Also, survivors of Impostor attacks have reported tentacles. Nothing of the sort has been caught on surviving camera footage, so it’s plausible that they’re just hallucinating things out of stress, or have mistaken the tongue-spears for tentacles. _Ooor_ the fuckers are packing secret, possibly prehensile limbs. So don’t assume that just because its back is to you that you’re safe and out of harm’s way. Got it?”

Lime nodded. “Assume it’s dangerous and try not to be noticed.”

“I know one of the first things you’d want to do is go back and protect Blue. Don’t. The best thing you can do for Blue is survive. The Impostor isn’t going to waste time on Blue until it’s done hunting everything else moving. Blue was left alive in the first place, rather than killed like Tan, because it felt it was more interesting to give him the chance to survive. Active prey is going to be more stimulating.”

“I understand…” Lime said softly. He had wanted to check on Blue to make sure Brown — the Impostor — hadn’t hurt him in retaliation.

“Medbay is a killbox,” White said, his eyes narrowing as he saw Lime’s reluctance.

Lime sighed and nodded again. “I understand. I’ll wait.”

“Good. What tasks do you have left?” 

They briefly went over what Lime had remaining on his task list. Lime could see the gears turning in White’s eyes as the Daemon tried to make plans, presumably trying to take into account the different abilities of all parties. Once White knew that Black was aware of what Lime’s task list was, White seemed satisfied.

“All right,” White said. “We’re going to have to split up for a bit. I’ve got too much to do and your tasks and mine don’t overlap. Here’s your plan: do your tasks and try not to get killed. Got it? If an alert goes off, let everyone else handle it. If you finish your tasks, stay low until either Black or I come to get you. Beware of some form of wounded gazelle gambit. To be frank, you’re just prime to get hurt trying to help someone else. Make sure it’s safe to help someone before you do. I checked Yellow and Red, so they’re not currently Impostors. We should be pretty safe that they won’t suddenly become Impostors in the next couple of hours either — it’s a process that takes at least a full 48 hours. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be used as bait to lure you out.”

“Got it. Where are Yellow and Red anyway?”

“With any luck, finishing up their tasks. Yellow was… pretty unhinged, though. Finding the other half of Tan…” White trailed off, his expression and tone surprisingly sympathetic. “I think I convinced him the best revenge was finishing his tasks, but if I’m being honest, once he doesn’t have that to focus on, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Be careful of him, okay? I think I convinced him it was Brown, but…”

“How did you know it wasn’t me, though?” Lime asked, curious.

There was something of an awkward expression on White’s face before he glanced away. “Black said he checked. I didn’t ask how, but I just assumed…”

Lime stared blankly at White for a few moments. “…eh?” Then it clicked what White had probably assumed he and Black had done and he blushed. Deeply. “Oh… _uhm_.” But he left it there, not really knowing what to say. It took him another moment to figure out how Black probably got a look at his bare skin. If he hadn’t still had vague memories of the night he got drunk and whining at Black about being too tired to take off his bio-suit, he would have had questions. 

It was far less awkward to just keep his mouth shut than deny they did anything — even if they hadn’t. What was he going to say? _No, you’ve got it wrong, we didn’t have sex, he just undressed me when I begged him to_. Lime would probably evaporate with embarrassment.

“Anyway,” White said, moving the conversation along. “Reports from people who’ve known Impostors before and after infection say there’s a clear personality switch. So if anyone became infected while here, we would have known something was up. It was usually a matter of them having some sort of accident or getting ill and spending a few days in Medbay before things started going screwy.”

“That’s reassuring to hear,” Lime said, still flushed and flustered. “I mean — knowing it’s unlikely to be anyone else.”

“Try not to walk on anything that will leave footprints. Just because it can’t see very well further away than arm’s length doesn’t mean it won’t be able to track prints if it watches the ground.” Lime nodded. 

“Anything else you want to know?” White asked, pulling his visor down until it snapped into place, apparently having run out of tips.

“Lots. But I can’t think of anything relevant,” Lime replied, sliding off the table and doing the same with his own visor.

“Then I'll catch you on the other side, Lime,” White quipped, offering a jaunty salute before moving to the far door, easing it open, glancing around, and then sliding it all the way into its place into the wall. With one last glance in Lime’s direction, White disappeared into the darkened halls.

Lime took a breath to steady himself and went to work on his tasks.

ඞ。。。。。

Lime’s first, self-appointed task was to check vitals. 

When the screen loaded, his first reaction was to be grateful that though they’d lost Tan, everyone else was still alive. However, he noticed that the readings for Red and Black were definitely stressed beyond everyone else’s levels. As with Blue earlier, the readings weren’t precise enough to tell anything else about their condition — for all he knew they’d stubbed their toe or got startled by the wind making a groaning sound. 

Okay, probably not… but he could hope it was that benign.

His fingers gripped at the table the vitals monitor sat on. He’d just agreed with White that he would stick to doing his tasks. It would definitely not be good to wander off on his own looking for Black and Red to check on them. But the image in his head of Black suffering alone somewhere wouldn’t leave his head. The last time he’d seen vital signs like these, Blue was stuffed in a cabinet bleeding out.

If he were being honest with himself, it was a foregone conclusion the moment he decided to check the vitals monitor. If he’d seen abnormal readings for _anyone_ then he would have been edgy and question sticking to his tasks. But knowing Black was in distress made it a fight he couldn’t really win. Instead of heading down to Specimen, Lime turned back and began making his way towards Weapons. He didn’t know exactly where Black would be, but he had a general idea of the task list Black had been given, so it was a place to start.

Stepping out into the blizzard was like throwing himself into the mouth of some raging ice monster. Thousands upon thousands of tiny ice shards lashed at him, trying to break through his bio-suit but only being able to freeze him with its frigid breath. It howled and shook him. If Weapons hadn’t been literally just outside of the Admin building, he wasn’t sure he would have found it under those conditions. Forget the Impostor, _he_ couldn’t see more than an arm’s length ahead of him!

At first it wasn’t scary.

All he had to do was focus on was making his way to Weapons, getting inside, and counting on the pre-fab building to protect him as the bio-suit was able to acclimate and thaw him back out. But the building shook and groaned around him in the wind as his eyes adjusted and he took in the state of Weapons.

That was when he truly understood what an Impostor attack was like. He really wished he’d listened to White and stayed where he was supposed to be.

Blood coated every surface. The computer’s screen was cracked, though the polygonal representations of asteroids far above them still blipped across the screen, waiting patiently for someone to choose to fire at them. A soft _pat_ of liquid landing on his helmet visor made him flinch and a glance confirmed that blood had dripped from the ceiling.

 _Pat_.

Bile rose in his throat as Lime stopped shivering and went still instead. Thoughts hit him rapid fire: _Was this where Blue was attacked? It’s dripping, does that mean the blood is fresh or is the weather keeping it fresher longer… he’s no forensics expert! — But Blue normally had Weapons duty… who got that part of Blue’s task list? It was Black, wasn’t it? Or was it Red? Probably — Black had wires_ … 

A thrill of alarm went up his spine as a single word rushed to the surface and dominated his mind: _Killbox_.

The only reason Lime didn’t bolt out of Weapons was because he was too afraid to run. If he slipped in the blood. If he ran into the Impostor. If he panicked and lost himself in the blizzard. Any of these could be the last thing he did.

Trying not to hyperventilate, Lime backed away to the door and squinted into the swirling snow, looking for human-shaped figures before taking the risk to dart from the doorway of Weapons to the doorway of Communications. He knew it was just as much of a killbox as Weapons, so he was only going to look for bodies. Thankfully, there was nothing.

Lime hesitated in the doorway as he tried to think. His options were to head to the O2 complex or go back to Admin and work on his tasks while searching. The second option was more responsible and had the advantage of being connected to the Laboratory complex, which was where Black was supposed to meet up with him. Of course, he didn’t know if anyone was there. But chances were high the Impostor was…

In the end, it was just knowing that White was likely going to O2 that decided him. If Black or Red were there, White would probably be the best one after himself to do emergency first aid if it were necessary. And White would have every reason to be thorough in his exploration of the complex. The Daemon probably had the most tasks on his task list, having taken on not just his share of Blue’s list, but also Brown’s once he was sure it was him.

After all, the Impostor was hardly going to help out in capturing itself.

Lime sighed, wishing he were as capable as Black and White seemed to be so he could risk going searching. Frankly, he was too scared to now. If the Admin table were unlocked, it would be one thing because he could just go to the rooms that had people in them, but searching blindly was inefficient and might get him killed. The peek into Weapons had been a chilling warning of that — and likely the last one he’d get. Feeling useless, he returned to Admin, letting himself back into the complex and waiting a moment while his eyes adjusted again.

It was good that he did, because the moment he stepped out of the hall, he saw a shadow move in the main Office, where vitals were. His breath caught in his throat as he waited, knowing better than to call out to whoever — or whatever — it was.

Almost lazily, the Impostor came out into the hall, leaning against the door frame as it smirked into the darkness. The bio-suit was still left open, the edges gently overlapping and showing off the white undershirt it wore beneath through the gaps. From the state of its eyes, it definitely seemed to still be recovering from being blinded, but even so it radiated a cocky attitude.

“Oh? Is that Lime?”

Lime couldn’t help taking a step away and winced as he heard the echo of it. The Impostor laughed.

“Thought sooo~” it cooed. “After all, who else would it be? Tan’s dead. Red’s dead. Black’s dead. Blue’s unconscious in Medbay. Yellow would be happy to see one of his best friends. And White wouldn’t be scared to confront me. So it could only be you, sweet, sweet Lime.”

It was _possible_ that Red and Black were dead, but since it was less than fifteen minutes since he last checked the vitals, Lime thought it was unlikely. It unnerved him because he didn’t know and couldn’t check unless he could get into the Office safely — nearly impossible to do if the Impostor was going to hang out there — but he wasn’t going to fall for an obvious attempt to get at him. 

It _itched_ , though. He really wanted to check vitals.

When Lime didn’t respond, the Impostor cocked its head and Brown’s expressive eyebrows jumped up again in mock surprise. A familiar gesture that made Lime’s gut churn.

“Cat got your tongue? Couldn’t have been _me_ … I didn’t even start to play with you yet, Lime.”

Lime realized that by the way the Impostor’s eyes were staring blankly his direction, too far to one side and a little too high, that he was definitely outside of its visual range right now. He could try to ease back outside, but that would make it obvious where he’d gone. He doubted the Impostor would be as hampered by the weather as he would be. He could try to hide in the break room… If he were careful, the Impostor would move on. And if he was less lucky, maybe he could use the layout to his advantage to get around it. Even if he didn’t have the time to check vitals, maybe he could slip out the other door while it was still hunting in the wrong place.

Heart pounding, he moved as quietly as possible for the door furthest from the Impostor and was rewarded by seeing that the Impostor’s expression didn’t change at all. It was still listening intently, a smirk pinned on its lips as it stared off towards the doorway of the entry hall. “You know you can’t get the latches undone before I can get to you, right?”

Lime slid inside the break room and made it to the far side of the table when he made his mistake — his backpack caught on the curtain. It was a soft sound, just a slight hiss of metal rasping on metal, but in a moment, the Impostor was in the nearer of the two doorways, grinning widely.

“Sneaky boy!” the Impostor said brightly, its tone approving and even somewhat affectionate. It was no different from the way Brown would have responded playfully if they’d been playing a game of hide and go seek or Marco Polo. 

Lime went still and stared as a thought crept up in his mind. One he hadn’t wanted. He’d probably… never met the _real_ Brown, had he? He couldn’t remember a single incident that had put Brown in Medbay or any change in his personality. 

Brown had been an Impostor the whole time. Years.

There was an awkward silence before the Impostor pouted a little. “Lime, Lime, Lime… You’re ruining the mood, you know? Talk to me… It’s not like I’m going to kill you, you know? We’re friends! Best buds! Pals!”

Lime closed his eyes — just for a moment — and released a slow breath. “You don’t mean that…” His voice was just a whisper, both because he was afraid to be any louder for fear of giving away his position and because he felt like he might cry if he pushed any further. His eyes burned and he tried desperately to blink away any possibility of tears. It was dangerous right now.

“Mmmmn… I guess it depends on interpretation, doesn’t it? _Does he really like me_ or is he just saying that to be _nice?_ ” the Impostor asked mockingly, staying in the doorway as if guarding it. “Well — guess what? I mean it the same as I did the last time I said it. I mean it a little more every time I do. Doesn’t that just give you warm fuzzies inside? I may even mean it just as much as you want me to. But I guess that’s up to you to decide, isn’t it?”

“What about the others? I thought _they_ were your friends too.” 

“Where’s the lie?” the Impostor asked, sounding annoyed and maybe a little unjustly accused.

“You _attacked them!_ You - you killed Tan! _Why?_ ” Lime didn’t know for sure what had happened to the others, but the claim that Black and Red were dead frightened him.

The Impostor made an impatient sound, finally stepping into the room. Its brows were drawn together as it advanced slowly and carefully, listening hard as it squinted around the room. “Tan saw me tampering with the seismic stabilizer. It’s not like he said anything or even looked at me funny, but he wasn’t dumb. He’d have put two and two together. I couldn’t risk it.”

“What about Blue then? He’s been with you almost as long as I have! I thought you two were…” Well, not a _couple_ , exactly, but… “Weren’t you two even closer than you and I were?”

The Impostor stopped and straightened, actually looking bemused. “Were we?”

“Of course! You were friends!”

“Ha,” the Impostor barked softly, a trace of bitterness in his tone that was quickly replaced with amusement. “Blue knew everything. Everything about all of us. And do you know why?” Lime found himself reflexively shaking his head in denial. “It wasn’t because he was nosy. Not _just_ because he was, anyway. He was working for MIRA. Their little spy, dutifully keeping tabs on us all. He never said anything, though. He could have prevented all this if he’d spoken to even one of you guys about what he suspected I was. He always did think he knew better than anyone… But I liked that about him. That’s why if he lives through the night, I’ll make him an Impostor too. Best friends forever!”

Lime was so shocked he made something of a hiccuping sound. This seemed to delight the Impostor.

“And where would the _two of us_ be without _you_ , Lime?”

With this, the Impostor’s eyes suddenly shifted and locked directly on Lime’s own horrified gaze. A movement of the Impostor’s hands on its bio-suit drew Lime’s attention downward in spite of himself. The undershirt had ridden up a little, revealing the twisted scar mouth on its stomach …which _smiled_.


	16. Task-Oriented

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black is back in the game.

Black didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, but he woke up bleeding, in pain, and very, very pissed. 

He had been sloppy and now he was suffering for it. He’d known the moment he saw Red in the chair that Red was being used as bait, but he’d thought between his training and his hearing he would have been able to catch signs of an attack before it happened. He was wrong. Black hoped he hadn’t been down for too long and that Lime and the others were okay.

Grunting with the effort, hand clutched to a healing wound on his torso, Black pushed himself to his feet and staggered over to where Red was crumpled in a heap on the floor. His friend was still unconscious and according to the bio-suit his vitals weren’t great, but on the reassuring side he wasn’t as badly off as Blue had been when they’d found him. The bio-suit was helping keep him stable for now.

While Black was fairly sure it would be safe to move Red, he thought it would probably be _safer_ to leave Red where he was after a little more treatment to stabilize him further. Like Blue, Red was probably not an enticing target for the Impostor. Not until there were no other targets to chase. Plus if they encountered the Impostor on the way to Medbay, Black would be much more vulnerable to attacks while his arms were full. That seemed like the Impostor’s style, based on what had happened so far.

At least he knew who it was now.

The problem was just in convincing the others. Well — everyone but White considering White had never really taken to Brown. White was the better of the two of them at not getting too close to their human co-workers as it was. Brown in particular got White’s hackles up. White had warned Black about both Blue and Brown being too interested in what everyone was doing, but Brown was the one that actively irritated his partner. It was hard to say whether that was because White’s instincts had been picking up on something or if White just couldn’t set aside his aversion to the personality type. 

Brown was _especially_ dangerous because of how close he’d become to everyone else. Black might not be able to convince the others that Brown was the Impostor. Not with Blue and Red currently being unable to verify his claims of being attacked. By the time he met up with the others, his wounds might not even look as nasty as they had been when Brown had inflicted them, which was awfully convenient for _him_ but would undermine his story for sure even with his bio-suit being torn and bloody.

Once Black had finished making certain Red wouldn’t bleed out before they could sort out Brown and return to take him to Medbay, his anger had cooled some. He could still feel it humming in his veins, but he wouldn’t be tempted to behave recklessly now that he’d been sobered by Red’s condition. 

Black got to his feet and quickly flicked through the camera feeds to see if he could get a feel for what was going on. He saw White cutting through the wind, hauling a gas cannister towards the dropship. Since that seemed like the least pressing task he could have, either White was dropping it off on his way somewhere else or it was close to the last thing he had left to do. Black then spotted Yellow hurrying out of the Boiler Room, hunched over as if concealing something and fighting the blizzard winds as he moved off in the direction of Weapons. Black didn’t see Lime or Brown anywhere, but it wouldn’t hurt to check Vitals on his way to search for Lime, so he made that his destination.

He turned off the cameras, gave Red one last check, and hurried to follow after Yellow. The winds weren’t quite as bad as they had felt the last time he was out in the mess, but it could have just been a perception based on the intention of getting closer to Lime rather than further away from him. When he drew even with the Communications and Weapons buildings, he briefly considered whether he should check in to see if Yellow was there and how he was doing, but the draw of reuniting with Lime was too strong, so he pressed on to the Office.

As soon as he stepped inside the building, he realized it was a good thing he hadn’t stopped. Angry and upset voices echoed down the hall from the break room.

“—ing about?! It’s not me!”

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, Yellow — he might not even know it’s him. That’s why we shouldn’t hurt him.”

It sounded like Lime and Brown speaking.

“It’s _not me! Brown_ is the Impos—” Lime protested before breaking off into a sudden silence.

“I don’t believe a damn word coming out of your mouth, _Impostor_ ,” Yellow growled. “I can’t believe you fucking killed Tan!”

There was a click that Black’s training told him was a weapon. He didn’t hesitate — he rushed towards the nearest door to the break room as silently as possible. He only took half a second to assess the situation — Lime in one corner of the room, pressed against the cabinets; Brown on the other side of the table from him, his bio-suit unbuckled and unzipped to the waist and helmet off; Yellow with his back to Black, gun aimed at Lime — before he leapt into action. 

He twisted Yellow’s arm so that he dropped the gun, causing the scrawny man to yelp with shock and pain, and then snarl with anger. Black used a foot to almost casually kick the gun away from both Yellow and Brown. The younger man tried to break free and then took a swing at him, so Black quickly knocked the back of his knee so Yellow went down into a kneel.

“Black! Brown’s the Impostor!” Lime said quickly, golden voice tight with stress. He had a smear of blood on his visor, but it didn’t appear to be his. He seemed to be frightened but otherwise fine. “White, uh — flashed a light at him. I think it’s wearing off!”

“Lies!” Yellow struggled, trying to get up; drawing Black’s attention back down to him until he applied a touch more pressure to his hold as a warning. “Brown wouldn’t lie about this! He’s not the Impostor, _Lime_ is!”

Black ignored Yellow, turning his full attention to Brown, who was staring at him with naked shock.

“I thought you were _dead!_ What the fuck!” Brown blurted out. Lime made a little choking sound of distress, but it didn’t appear that Yellow had registered anything was off by that comment, too busy muttering accusations against Lime under his breath like a mantra.

Black ignored Brown too, speaking to Lime without taking his eyes off the Impostor. “Move this way — towards me. Stay close to the wall. We don’t know what his range is.”

“No! Don’t come here!” Yellow howled, writhing so wildly that Black was concerned he’d accidentally end up hurting the kid in his attempts to keep him safely restrained. “I don’t want an Impostor anywhere near me! I don’t want to die! I don’t… w-want to die like Tan!” The young man was practically sobbing now, pressing the visor release on his helmet so he could rub at his face.

“Yellow,” Lime said softly, his tone sympathetic and his feet slowing, clearly feeling terrible about the idea of getting closer and freaking Yellow out more.

“He won’t listen to anything either of us say, Lime,” Black sighed, eyes still watching Brown. “He won’t believe it’s Brown until he sees it. And I don’t think Brown is ready to break cover yet. Not in front of three of us.”

Brown just laughed, appearing to snap out of his shock at seeing Black not just alive, but potentially fully recovered from his attacks. He seemed… almost exhilarated.

“Look Brown — this doesn’t have to come to violence. We might be able to help you,” Black said. He didn’t really expect Brown to take him up on it, but it seemed to make Lime and Yellow calm down slightly. Lime continued moving towards him and Yellow stopped flailing wildly.

“Man, you’re just… really stuck on Lime, huh? Willing to believe him without question…” Brown said, his tone quietly taunting and his usually warm eyes sparkling with malice that didn’t match his smile. This was a show for Yellow’s benefit, to get to Black and maybe Lime as a bonus. No - this was probably entirely for Brown’s own amusement. “I guess that’s the power of Lime’s pretty face. Hard _not_ to trust him, right? _Useful_ for an Impostor.” There was a grin on his lips that promised nothing good.

What followed was something Black could only piece together properly later. He’d been watching Brown, so he only caught things play out from the corner of his eye. 

There was a clattering sound to his left — Lime had accidentally kicked the gun, which then slid across the floor. Yellow turned his head toward the sound and then lunged forward to grab his weapon. Once he managed to get it in hand, Yellow aimed the gun at Lime, saying something about Tan as he cocked it. 

Before Black had time to react, Brown howled in anger and acted first. The Impostor yanked open his suit and the maw on his stomach gaped wide, the black spear-like tongue Impostors all seemed to have ripping through the air and spearing Yellow through the head. If Yellow hadn’t opened the visor of his helmet, he might have survived, but there was no question that he was dead when he collapsed to the floor, blood splattered all over the room.

“You _did not_ just try to kill my _friend!_ ” Brown screamed, his voice cracking and shredding with pure rage.

From his body language, Lime clearly saw it all unfold. It looked like Lime was going to dive forward to try to save Yellow, but Black didn’t give him the chance. Instead, he scooped Lime up and bolted from the room. Black thought in a fair, one-on-one fight, he could take Brown, but Lime wasn’t as durable as _he_ was. And though Brown had just protected Lime from Yellow, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt Lime under his _own_ terms. He’d nearly killed Blue after all.

It was better to regroup.

“Black! We’ve got to — it might not be as bad as it looks!” Lime protested, arms going around Black’s neck to cling once Black had transferred him into a better hold against his chest.

“Trust me — even _I_ would have trouble coming back from that,” Black gritted out, hurrying down into Admin and pressing the access button to get into the Decontamination chamber. 

The door thankfully popped open immediately. When it closed with a hiss, the chamber filled with a disinfectant steam, cleaning away the blood on their bio-suits as if it were just a bad dream. Black gently set Lime down on his feet and a second later they heard the door being battered by powerful blows. Instinctively, they both turned to face the door. Black felt his muscles tense as he stepped between Lime and the possible threat. The door sounded like it were in danger of being breached, which wasn’t too surprising considering it wasn’t exactly built to withstand any serious amount of force.

Black felt Lime’s gloved hands gently touch his back — on his bare skin — which alerted him that Brown’s presumed killing blow had actually gone through his torso. He hadn’t even realized. To reassure Lime, he moved his own hand to offer it to him. Lime slipped his hand into Black’s and squeezed. 

The second door to the Decontamination chamber opened and the battering at the door stopped immediately.

After stepping past the threshold, Black looked over at Lime. Lime had pushed back the visor of his helmet, his lovely blue eyes red-rimmed and a little teary, but thankfully alert and relatively calm. He was obviously very upset, but the steadiness of his gaze told Black he was resolved to live rather than give in. 

Black released his own visor to smile down at Lime before leaning in for a too-brief kiss, pleased when Lime returned it. “This could get dicey. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Lime said. “I trust you so… just tell me what you want me to do.”

Black couldn’t help but flash a smile before sobering again. “Right now, just stay close. He might have been trying to make sure we couldn’t come back out through that door… or he might still be lurking out there, waiting for us to double-back. Hard to tell.”

“It’s… If I had to make a guess… I think he’s still out there,” Lime offered tentatively, following along as Black headed down the corrugated metal and space-grade plastic sheeting halls which connected Decon to Specimen. 

He nodded in reply. “Stay quiet. I’m going to have to listen for signs of anyone coming.” Impostors were reported to move very quickly at times, so he couldn’t discount that Brown couldn’t come at them from the other hallway before they were really expecting it.

Lime agreed with a nod of his own and just tightened his hold on Black’s hand.

When they passed the windows in the halls, Black paused to see if it was possible to pop one out and escape in a way Brown wouldn’t likely anticipate, but it looked as if the windows may have actually been installed better than the doors had been. They’d have to have the right tools to get out any other way. He sighed softly and continued into Specimen itself.

The room gently bubbled with various experiments those who had been given side-tasks had been asked to run for MIRA. Knowing what they did now, Black leaned in to inspect the glass tubes and what floated inside them. His voice kept soft, he asked, “Any idea what these are?”

Lime shook his head, moving in to peer at them too before taking up a clipboard with notes. “My guess… revitalizing biological samples, but… these seem like plant material.” He looked over at Black as if to ask, _does that help?_

Black nodded and squeezed his hand. They stood there together for a few seconds in mutual silence, just listening and waiting.

Finally Lime broke it with another whisper. “…How close did he — it get to killing you?” He clearly didn’t want to hear the answer, but also must not have been able to let it go.

“Mmn…” Black tossed him a sidelong look, trying to gauge Lime’s ability to handle the full truth. Deciding he needed to risk being honest, he said, “Closer than I thought but… not close enough to worry about. This doesn’t hold true for all Daemons, but my kind is hard to kill. Killing us outright is really the best course of action. Otherwise, we have a good chance of recovering — it’s just a matter of how long it takes.” And how painful that recovery would be, but he wasn’t going to add that if he didn’t have to.

Lime looked openly relieved, his expression relaxing as he nodded and smiled. “Good.”

Black echoed Lime’s smile and drew the other man in front of him to hold Lime against his body. It wasn’t really a great time to do more than that, as much as he thought they would both really appreciate the opportunity to be closer. The assurance that his Lime was unharmed took away the stone that had been heavy in his gut since they’d parted ways. He could feel Lime’s warmth and the faintest signs of his heart beating near his own. He closed his eyes to both better enjoy their closeness and help him focus on sounds of either Decontamination chamber activating.

After a few precious moments, Lime whispered, “I have a few tasks in here. Should I try to do them while we wait…?” He sounded so guilty about it that Black smiled, gently rubbing Lime’s back before releasing him.

“If I can help…” 

Lime nodded and directed him to a terminal, explaining in a few words what he needed him to do before going off to another part of Specimen to work on his own project. They managed their tasks as quietly as possible, occasionally exchanging smiles or a few words when necessary. There was something very companionable about working together like that. It should have been very tense and stressful as they waited for Brown to make his next move, but both of them seemed to have their anxiety eased just by looking up and seeing the other.

That all came to a halt when there was a distinct echo of a Decontamination door opening and the chamber filling with steam. They looked to each other and immediately stopped what they were doing.

 _Stay there_ , Black mouthed to Lime from across the room. It sounded as if it was coming from the northern chamber, so he moved to the hall to double check. Behind him, he could hear Lime trying to finish his task as swiftly as he could.

When the doors of the Decontamination chamber opened, Black was shocked to see that the person standing there wasn’t Brown. It wasn’t even White. It was Yellow. His gore-spattered visor was down, sparing the sight of his lolling head. His arms hung limply at his sides and a great postmortem wound was torn across his stomach. From that wound an ichor that Black had only seen before in historical records oozed, staining everything from the waist down.

Yellow’s body had clearly been, well, _installed_ with what was probably stage one of a Beelzebub’s growth cycle. It appeared Impostors could animate human corpses by splitting off a piece of themselves the same way Beelzebubs did. Based on Black’s imperfect knowledge of Beelzebubs, the growth seemed like it would normally be too small and new to manage this much control over a body. Whether that had something to do with the difference between Impostors and true Beelzebubs or more to do with the differences between human bodies and Daemonic bodies, Black didn’t know. That was something for the experts to figure out. 

Not that it mattered when the more important thing to worry about was that Yellow’s parasite-infected corpse was now aiming a gun at him.

A sort of battle fury that was unlike anything Black had ever experienced before enveloped him in a mixture of hot anger and cold calculation. It was like distilled adrenaline. It must be the _wrath_ that Daemonic histories spoke of experiencing when confronting a Beelzebub. He’d honestly thought that _wrath_ was nothing more than poetic license or an exaggeration of normal fight-or-flight response, but it appeared to be some sort of instinct a Daemon felt when confronting their millennia old foes. It hadn’t happened with Brown, but it may have just been lack of a sight or smell that triggered it.

Black felt his body shift to his Daemonic form without his conscious choice to do so. By the time the zombified crewmate had made two steps, the materialization of the curled horns his kind were famous for had forced Black to remove his helmet. He threw it at the zombie and used that action as cover to charge, full-body tackling the creature that used to be Yellow.


	17. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime's best play here is to hide.

Lime scrambled to finish his task. He refused to be the reason they couldn’t end the Impostor’s threat. Of course, they had no guarantee that completing their tasks would do anything — the Impostor may have already sabotaged something critical to whatever HQ’s plan entailed — but at least he didn’t want to wonder if he could have done something more.

He finished about the time Black pulled off his helmet. Silvery ram-like horns curled into existence starting from just behind Black’s temples, large enough to presumably protect the back of his skull from damage if he were to fall. There were flickers of glowing green light in the darkness that Lime registered as probably being from Black’s eyes. The Daemon’s back was to him now, so he couldn’t really see what other changes had happened other than a vague sense of Black looking more physically intimidating than he’d ever seen and his normally bound hair having come undone and swaying behind him in a way that seemed unnatural anywhere with gravity.

This was not how he wanted to see Black as he really was. He’d hoped for something more on their own terms — sitting on the edge of the bed, maybe, not fighting for their lives.

“Stay back! It has a gun!” Black warned him as he grappled with another figure. His normally deep voice was even deeper now, with a hollow tone to it like a temple bell.

Lime gaped at the two for a moment. Something about the awkward movements of the other figure told him something was wrong with it, but it took the fight getting closer to him for him to recognize it as Yellow. From the way Yellow’s head rolled around on his neck, he knew that Yellow was certainly dead still — but just as clearly Black wasn’t able to easily overpower him the way he had in the Office break room. 

A natural horror of the concept of the undead made Lime skitter further away from the grappling pair, moving to the mouth of the opposite tunnel as Black drove Yellow’s animated corpse further back the way it had come. 

Lime trembled with nerves, waiting for Black to give him further instructions. He wasn’t a fighter by any stretch — he’d never really seen the need. In an ideal world, he’d even call himself a pacifist. As evidenced by the existence of Impostors, this wasn’t an ideal world, so he wished he’d taken some form of self-defense class when it was offered to him. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so useless. A situation like this left him utterly at a loss for how he could help without getting in Black’s way. He was about to take the risk of distracting Black by asking — 

Instead, he was grabbed from behind, a hand clamping over his mouth and something wrapping hard around his neck, arms, and legs as he was dragged away.

ඞ。。。。。

“Buddy, you’re really kinda hurting my feelings,” the Impostor complained after the door to the western Decontamination chamber closed behind them and the room filled with steam. 

Lime was struggling — wildly, desperately struggling. The Impostor wasn’t more than a few inches taller and not really any more fit than Lime was — but its wiry body seemed at least twice as strong as it looked. Plus there were what he could only assume were tentacles that were wrapped around him, making it difficult for Lime to have any leverage to escape or lash out. 

The hand that kept Lime from calling out to Black gripped his face so hard that Lime was sure he would bruise. He had tried to force his mouth open to try to bite or yell in spite of the hand, but the Impostor had gritted out a single, “ _Don’t_ ,” in his ear with such a forbidding tone that Lime was instantly cowed, afraid he’d get his neck snapped if he pushed the Impostor too far. Interestingly enough, his other struggles didn’t seem to annoy it at all, perhaps because the Impostor had less of a fear of Lime breaking free than Black hearing him.

“I hope you’re not worried I’m going to do anything _weird_ to you, Lime,” the Impostor said conversationally as it dragged him out of the other side of the Decontamination chamber and into Admin. “We’re friends, right? I’m not into you that way.”

Lime stared up at the Impostor out of the corner of his eye and hesitantly shook his head because, no, not even once had it occurred to him that the Impostor might do something sexual to him. This seemed to please the Impostor, because it grinned at him with all of the charm and friendliness Lime had ever known from his friend Brown.

“Great! I’m glad you trust me! Now, do we need all of this?” ‘This’ seemed to refer to the different limbs that the Impostor was using to bind him by the way they flexed slightly. “If you can behave, I’ll put you down.”

Lime hesitated. Obviously, he wanted to be free. Resisting seemed like the ideal thing to do. But Brown had always been surprisingly good at reading people. It was probably not smart to lie to the Impostor’s face — especially when it was already irritated. But… that said, Lime did want to know more about what the Impostor was thinking. So he hesitantly shook his head, ceasing his struggles even if he was shivering constantly with how on edge he was.

Again, the Impostor smiled at him — its expression almost beatific. First the tentacles and then its arms relaxed before gently releasing him entirely — even courteously supporting him until he found his balance. When Lime just turned around to stare at his captor, the Impostor laughed, putting his hands on his hips. 

Eight semi-transparent smoky-black tentacles, not unlike some unholy mixture of squid and jellyfish, waved in the air around it, glistening in the light of their lamps.

“What… do you want?” Lime asked, his voice small and a little raspy from the near-choking he’d experienced.

The Impostor’s expressive eyebrows went up as if it were surprised and a little confused. “Want? The same thing as I’ve always wanted — a lot of great friends, am I right?” It laughed again, the smile that lingered behind just a little malicious.

“I don’t understand… what you mean by that,” Lime pressed.

The Impostor sighed, crossing its arms across its chest and looking a little disappointed in Lime. “What’s not to get? We’re friends. Blue’s our friend. The three of us will get on great together! I even decided Red will be our friend too. Once I ripped him open I just couldn’t help myself. The more the merrier, right? Plus, he’s really smart, so that egg-head of his will come in useful. Yellow… well, I didn’t really care one way or the other about _him_ , but we’ll find something for him to do if he survives. He won’t be like _us_ , but he’ll be kind of like our little pet.”

Lime felt a shiver go up his spine and he automatically shook his head. “I don’t… want to be… like you. You’re going to make us into Impostors, aren’t you?”

“Of course! It’s a lot better than being _human_ , let me tell you! Not that I remember much about when I was human, mind. But there are bits and pieces that float up in my dreams. It’s really annoying, if I’m being honest. You humans are always _feeling_ too much. What do you need aside from the basics? Is it fun? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you angry? Are you _hungry?_ ”

The Impostor reached out, its eyes hard even as it smiled. Lime tried not to cringe away when its hands reached to him and slowly lifted his helmet off. The Impostor winked at him and then tossed the helmet onto the Admin table nearby.

“There’s that pretty face of yours. Aw. You look upset. Well, I’d promise you I’d bring your Black over too but… He makes me angry. He makes me _hungry_. He and White always have. I think… if I eat them, I’ll get stronger. What do you think, Lime?” The Impostor gave Lime’s hair something of an affectionate ruffle. “They’re something _special_ , like me, aren’t they?”

It was clearly a demand that he tell what he knew, but Lime just shook his head. Even if he wanted to tell what he knew, he was too afraid to say anything. The Impostor’s eyes narrowed, lips thinning as it seemed to think about how to get the information it wanted out of him. Presumably it was concerned that if it made him an Impostor, what the human Lime knew would be forgotten by the Impostor Lime. 

Lime could feel the Impostor’s fingers gently gripping at his scalp, palming his skull like a basketball in a subtle display of its agitation. Fear choked Lime as he hoped that not only did the Impostor not want to crush his head, but it couldn’t even if it wanted to.

The impasse was interrupted by a distant thudding sound that seemed to be someone trying to force the Decontamination doors open.

“Whoops!” the Impostor said almost playfully, snatching Lime up and tossing him over its shoulder. “We’d better go. If it’s Black, I’m not in the mood to dance. And if it’s Yellow, he’s probably going to be really hungry, and _you’re_ not food!”

Tentacles immediately wrapped around Lime again, keeping him from struggling, but considering Lime’s air had been partly knocked out of his lungs by the force of being slung, it was hardly a necessary precaution. He just heaved for breath and blinked stars and tears out of his eyes as he was carried out of the Admin complex and out into the snow. The shock of the cold helped center Lime and keep him from panicking at the combination of having the wind knocked out of him and being abducted by an Impostor that was intending on effectively killing him.

The blizzard had calmed down. Whether that was a temporary lull in the storm or if it was easing as day approached, Lime couldn’t tell. But while he couldn’t see very far when he lifted his head, the winds didn’t seem to be as difficult to maneuver through. It was useful information because if he got a chance, he was just going to bolt and hope for the best.

His chance came sooner than he expected.

As they passed Weapons, the Impostor slipped and fell, dropping him with an inhuman cry that sent the hair on the back of his neck up. The tentacles loosened in the seconds the Impostor was stunned. Lime didn’t hesitate — he scrambled to his feet and took off into the snowy darkness. 

He ran past Communications and his observations caught up to him: scattered shards of frozen blood had been in the snow. It was the Impostor’s own barbaric actions that had lead to its literal downfall. If it hadn’t attacked someone in Weapons… A hysterical laugh bubbled up in Lime’s throat, though he knew better than to give voice to it. He didn’t want to give away his position.

Lime hooked a left when he reached the end of the building, hoping that he could juke the Impostor if he were fast enough. Nearby he heard Brown’s familiar voice calling to him.

“Playing hide and seek, huh? Well — don’t blame me if I play _hard_.” The Impostor sounded both furious and excited — a combination that terrified Lime. He had the distinct awareness that getting caught wasn’t going to be good for him.

He skirted around Communications before flat out bolting for the O2 complex. Perhaps he made too much noise or maybe the Impostor just saw him, because he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye as he hurried to get the door open. He yanked the door closed behind himself and latched it again. He knew it wasn’t the same as truly locking it, however. It wouldn’t stop the Impostor for more than a few seconds, but he hoped it gave him enough time to get away.

The only question was — where did he go?

 _The tree_ , his mind whispered desperately. He was familiar with the Creeper and maybe it would be safe if he hid in its branches. No one else but him really spent time in the room and as far as he knew, he was the only one on the team to ever climb it. He’d be faster than anyone else at doing it too. 

Anyone human, anyway.

Without really thinking too hard about it, Lime darted into the tree room and clambered up the tree’s trunk, quickly hiding as high in the branches as he could. He heard the distant sound of the final click of the door unlatching itself before sliding open with a pneumatic hiss. Lime tried to smother his panting as he clung to the Creeper’s trunk, hastily turning off his shoulder lamp.

He was too afraid to close his eyes, so he watched from the tiny gaps in the Creeper’s leaves for any sign of movement in the darkened room.

And he waited.

And waited.

Finally, he heard a faint hiss of something moving in the cave grass below. He tried not to give himself away with any movements or sounds, but something must have alerted the Impostor, because he heard Brown’s familiar chuckle below him in the dark.

“Liiime, buddy… Let’s talk, huh?” There was a pause as if the Impostor were listening or just waiting for a reply in general. Then it continued. “You might think that either Black or White is going to step in and stop this, but it’s too late. I’m not letting you go now.”

The soft sounds of feet moving through grass continued, coming from different angles as the Impostor seemed to pace around the room. It sounded as if it were searching for him. Maybe it still couldn’t see as well as normal.

“Do you know why, Lime?” Another pause. “Your fear tastes the most delicious. I’ve been marinating you for so long, after all. All of those years of being your friend, listening to you talk about your petty human emotions… You’ll like the taste of fear too. It’s even more delicious than warm flesh.”

Lime’s eyes closed when the voice sounded like it was just below him. He was afraid if he looked, he’d meet the Impostor’s eyes, and it would be all over. He wondered desperately where Black and White were. He hoped they were okay. He hoped Blue and Red were okay…

“They aren’t coming,” the Impostor whispered below him. Lime couldn’t help but flinch at the echo of his own thoughts. “Not yet. Probably not for awhile. I sabotaged the doors to Decontamination. Even if Black survived Yellow’s attack, he can’t get out. And White… well. If he saw the little surprise I left in Comms, he’s busy dealing with that.”

Lime waited, but the Impostor didn’t elaborate.

In fact, several minutes passed where Lime didn’t hear anything at all. He listened, straining his ears and holding his breath. But he didn’t even hear the hiss of the cave grass. He felt as though his heart was going to beat out of his chest, but he eventually forced himself to slowly open his eyes and carefully look down. Nothing.

First five minutes passed. And then ten. He counted the seconds.

For another several minutes he debated with himself over whether to come down from the tree. It seemed as if the Impostor left to search for him elsewhere, but if he was wrong, it would be ridiculously easy to get caught. On the other hand, if he stayed there too long, whatever had made the Impostor search there to begin with might draw it back to search again — and more carefully.

He had been hidden in the tree for what felt like nearly a half hour before he began easing his way down. Slowly. Careful not to make noise and trembling with fear and certainty he was about to die every time he made the slightest sound. The worst part was of course the final drop. It was always bad, but the fear of making too much noise made him feel like he was having a panic attack.

The nearly silent three-point landing he made in the end was the best ‘dismount’ he’d ever had from the Creeper tree, but was simultaneously nothing to feel proud over. In his own mind it sounded like he’d dropped a ton of bricks and he froze where he landed, petrified with fear.

It took almost a minute before he got to his feet and started towards the door.

“Fooound youuu…” a voice whispered from near the tree.

Horrified, Lime turned his head to see the Impostor almost bonelessly emerge from the small vent to the empty lava tubes below. A child would have struggled to use it, but somehow Brown’s body had folded in on itself in unnatural ways and unfolded itself, using its tentacles to balance. It used one of them to click on its shoulder lamp and in that small light, Lime saw a terrifying grin stretch across its face.

Lime panicked and ran, bolting through the doorway, skidding around the corner, and pelting up the hall. There was no thought in his head at all — just pure blind certainty if he hesitated at all, he’d die.

The Impostor’s laugh echoed through the building as he heard heavy footfalls behind him. He even saw a glistening tentacle whip by his face as if he’d been grabbed at and missed. A strangled scream erupted from his throat. He was sure he was about to die and ducked as he ran.

Then the long window at the end of the hall that overlooked the seismic stabilizer platform and the canyon below turned white with light. Lime was absolutely blinded.

Behind him that inhuman shriek sounded again and he heard a meaty thrashing that sounded as if the tentacles were slamming against something heavy.

Though blind, Lime didn’t stop — he put his gloved hand on the wall and kept moving until he ran out of wall. He ended up bashing his shoulder into the far side of the hall, but was somehow able to make his way to the exit, unlatch the door, and stumble outside, screaming for Black.

The world was white. White snow. White light. White hot pain.


	18. Extraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black does his best to protect Lime.

Black was lucky in that the Beelzebub wasn’t fully integrated with the corpse. It lacked the coordination and strength it should have had if it had been given the time to wrap its tendrils properly around the nerves and bones. It also was too young to have grown its various extra tentacles which would allow it to attack from multiple angles. 

On the other hand, just because the Beelzebub wasn’t quite at home yet didn’t mean the zombie Yellow wasn’t _dangerous_. 

It was stronger than Yellow could ever normally be. There were no signals in the brain that told the body not to overdo it, so the body could overclock itself in the same way a parent might show superhuman strength to protect their child. Not being fully integrated meant that none of the pain signals that should have been transmitted to the Beelzebub were functioning either — so the body could rip itself apart in its attempt to attack him and the creature didn’t have to care. It could always reassemble the corpse until it found a better one to inhabit.

All it needed to do now was attack. If it were the same as the Beelzebubs from the historical records, that’s all it really was likely to be capable of even thinking: Attack, kill, and perhaps feed.

Though Black was stronger than humans had any right to be and his kind were pretty literally built for war, subduing the creature was a surprisingly long and painful fight. They thrashed through the lab, upsetting and perhaps destroying most of the samples and experiments. Black had to snap the creature’s wrists to prevent it from wielding the gun. That wouldn’t stop a Beelzebub for long, so he didn’t give it time to start knitting its host back together. 

He kicked out its knees and drove it to the ground before shoving a fist into it and ripping the goose egg-sized tumor out of Yellow’s corpse. To conserve his energy, he simply crushed it before hurtling it far down the hall, hearing it hit the door on the other side. As wounded as it was, he didn’t think it was strong enough to crawl its way back to the corpse and reanimate it, so he looked around for Lime.

It was only then that he realized his little medic was gone.

Since there was almost no chance that Lime had got past the fight to go to the northern Decontamination chamber without him noticing, he rushed to the western chamber. Something had been done to the doors and they wouldn’t open. Still amped up from the fight and the surge of _wrath_ still burning in his system, Black tried battering it down using his fists and his enhanced strength. 

Eventually — Black couldn’t say how long it took — the door to the chamber gave way. He forced the two halves of the door apart and stalked inside. The decontamination process wasn’t triggered. That was about the time his common sense started to resurface. There was another door. It might not have been tampered with. But as he panted from his recent efforts and attempted to calm himself down, he decided it was better to continue this way. There might be signs of where Lime had gone.

The second door opened easier than the first, perhaps already too damaged by the Impostor’s actions to put up much resistance to a _wrathful_ Daemon. There was no sign of Lime in the next room aside from his helmet left on the Admin table, laying on its side at an awkward angle. It didn’t look like the careful way Lime would set it down himself, which suggested something had happened.

Black called for Lime several times as he went to check on vitals. Lime’s suit still registered him as alive, though his vitals were clearly agitated. Red and Blue showed predictably less healthy vitals. White and Brown showed similar levels to Lime’s. 

Relieved, Black let himself take a moment to think. Every second was precious, but letting _wrath_ encourage reckless behavior was worse.

Teeth grinding as he turned possible actions over in his mind, Black’s fists clenched before he returned to Admin to use his affinity for technology to force the digital lock open. It was something that was going to leave one hell of a blip in the activity logs for anyone who checked it, though it would take another Daemon who knew what they were doing to figure out what happened, much less trace it directly to him. 

On the admin table screen he saw three figures in Medbay, two in O2, and one in Admin. It narrowed Lime’s possible location down to two, but as they were on opposite sides of the site, almost the furthest away from each other they could get, there wasn’t a quick route to take to cover both possibilities. Either Medbay or O2 sounded like places Lime might go. And who was he with? Red, White, or Brown?

Black tried not to let his body sag as the combination of the _wrath_ , the fight, the use of his affinity, and everything else that had happened during this incredibly long day started to catch up with him. He closed his eyes to rally his energy again. He didn’t let himself linger for very long, though. 

He had to move. 

O2 was going to be slightly faster for him to get to than Medbay from where he was. 

As he decided that, the two dots that signaled bio-suits in O2 blipped off on the admin table screen under his hands. They’d left the room, so whoever was there had left together. He had to hurry if he wanted to be sure he met up with them.

It would be good for Lime if Lime was with White in O2, but that would also mean that the helpless Red and Blue were in danger from Brown.

As quickly as he could, Black weaved his way out of the Admin building only to find the whole of Polus 339 was lit up like a stadium. He paused, squinting in the bright light before his eyes adjusted. He began to jog towards the entrance to O2 when he heard a scrap of a sound carried to him by the wind. He paused, trying to pinpoint where it came from.

“ _BLACK!_ ” a golden voice screamed, cutting through the chaos. 

Lime. 

The medic’s cry was followed immediately by a small, broken sound of pain that wasn’t entirely swallowed by the winds that still whipped through Polus 339. Black changed direction, running towards Lime’s call somewhere between the entrance to the Security complex and the dropship.

Within moments he saw Lime collapsed on the ground, blood blossoming in the snow from a wound on his leg. Brown stood over him, eight eldritch tentacles flailing blindly in the air as a ninth — the tongue-spear — retracted back into the maw on his torso. The Impostor was shouting something about White being a fucking bastard. 

It was clearly not important, though, so Black just tackled him, taking advantage of Brown not yet having detected him.

The Daemon and the Impostor tumbled over the ground together, the semi-transparent tentacles getting tangled with both sets of limbs and even Black’s horns. Seizing on something that might give it an advantage, the Impostor’s tentacles tried to wrap around the horns. This just made Black bare his teeth in a toothy grin before his body was enveloped in a few inches of hellfire, scorching the vulnerable tentacles and making the Impostor once known as Brown shriek with pain.

It twisted, its hold on Black loosening a moment before then simply shoving him with all of its strength. Black was thrown a few feet away, but recovered quickly, rolling to his feet. In the meantime, the Impostor was crawling hastily towards the cliff, its figure now distorted and inhuman. Black could hear the Impostor’s bones and joints popping and snapping as it tried to quickly deform its body to fit into the small sinkhole by the edge. Black snarled and leapt for the creature before it could throw itself into it and escape.

The two of them brawled with furious blows of all of their limbs. Distantly, Black heard someone scream a warning about the cliff and managed to avoid letting the Impostor use its tentacles as leverage to throw him over the edge of it. He gripped the Impostor by the hair and smashed its head against the ground until it was stunned. Now that it was no longer fighting, Black threw it further away from the cliff and sinkhole. 

In mere heartbeats, he was on it again, denying the Impostor any chance to recover.

Though now in a better position and the Impostor was briefly weakened, Black didn’t let up. He pinned the more lean figure below him with his body weight as one hand went to grip at its throat and the other drove itself into the ‘scar’ over its stomach, forcing the maw to open so he could grab the tongue-spear by the base. He tried to rip the dangerous appendage out by the root, distantly wondering if a Beelzebub tumor was on the other end of it.

The moment his fist wrapped around the slime-coated tongue, he felt another surge of _wrath_ flood through his body, which caused the hellfire’s flames to reflexively erupt again and leap even higher this time. Instead of merely scorching, everywhere he touched started to _burn_. This unfortunately included his bio-suit, even though it had been modified for Daemonic use. 

He always had tended to run hotter than average.

His muscles strained as the Impostor writhed in pain and anger as it tried to escape. The maw’s teeth clamped over his forearm in an attempt to force Black to let it go, but its bite strength wasn’t enough to sever his arm and the hellfire was not put out by the lack of oxygen. Black’s remaining energy reserves were burning recklessly, but this is what he had saved it for.

The tentacles and the Impostor’s arms tried to batter at him in a desperate attempt to weaken him enough to gain new leverage, but Black simply endured until the Impostor finally passed out. Many soft thuds of the tentacles collapsing to the ground followed the Impostor’s eyes rolling back into its head. But it wasn’t until the maw went lax that Black extinguished the hellfire. 

He didn’t take his eyes off of the Impostor, though. Instead, he called over his shoulder as he pried the Impostor off of his bloodied arm.

“Lime?”

“I’m… okay. He — it stabbed me in the leg but… I think I’m okay? It doesn’t seem too bad but I don’t think I can walk right now. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” 

Lime’s worried voice came from only a few feet behind him, which helped Black relax.

“I’ll be fine… Don’t worry.” Aside from the rather ugly looking wounds on his arm from the Impostor’s maw, he’d only taken some bruises and minor scratches. The damage the hellfire did to his own skin would heal the fastest. It was the reason his kind had developed such powerful healing abilities to begin with. 

Black directed Lime to treat his own injury first while he guarded the Impostor’s body.

Before he really could think about how to handle the Impostor without risking it reviving before being properly restrained, a disheveled looking White jogged up. White no longer looked like the cool scientist he pretended, but rather the rakish operative he knew him to be. His partner looked stretched to his limits as well, though thankfully it didn’t seem as he’d engaged in a similar one-on-one encounter. That said, his bio-suit had a smear of blood on his shoulder and looked scorched up to the elbow of one arm — something that White had blown off with a sneer in the Impostor’s direction when Lime asked about it. 

“Comms was booby-trapped. Not well enough, though.” He went to rummage around in a crate nearby.

“The lights… was that you, White?” Lime asked, his voice still somewhat shaky. “Did you complete the tasks to get HQ’s plan to work?”

“It was me, but it wasn’t whatever HQ had in mind. I overrode the geothermal power supply’s protocol and rerouted the power into the lights. A slight change in frequency puts the light at something like a Lucifer’s light-venting. Not perfect, but I guess it worked well enough. Who knows what HQ’s plan was.”

Shortly thereafter, White pulled some cables out of one of the crates and he and Black secured all of the Impostor’s limbs. Then White looked over at Lime. “I got Red to Medbay, so we should take care of this quickly so you can give him more than basic first aid.”

As soon as the Impostor was safely restrained in a dropship chair, Lime asked White to find a particular heavy-duty medicine in Medbay. Lime was pretty sure it should be powerful enough to keep the Impostor down for as long as they really needed if they kept putting it into its drip. Once done, the three of them moved inside.

ඞ。。。。。

Not long later, they were gathered around Red and Blue’s beds in Medbay, various machines monitoring their vitals. Blue was weak, but still stable, while Red’s vitals were unsteady. The man in question lay there looking somehow worse than Blue in spite of his lesser injuries. The moment Lime relayed the claim the Impostor had made about infecting Red, White hurried over to check the wound more thoroughly before grimly agreeing that the process had begun.

“I checked when I brought him here earlier, but I must have missed it. Usually the signs are more conspicuous…” 

Obvious chagrin made White clench his fists as he leaned on the edge of the bed, head lowered and the muscles in his shoulders tensing. His platinum hair slid down to mask his expression. It was enough to remind Black that his partner didn’t let many people — especially humans — get close enough to be counted as “friends”. If anything, White was probably even more worried about Red than he or Lime were.

“Well, the Impostor wanted to infect Blue and me too,” Lime said softly. “Would that explain it? Like, it did less of whatever it was to make sure it had enough to go around. So the symptoms were more subtle…?”

“Perhaps,” White conceded after a moment. He took a breath and lifted his head, trying to regain his composure. In spite of his efforts, he still looked sullen and haunted. The reminder made him turn and immediately examine Blue again with fierce eyes before he looked to the others and shook his head slightly. “The Impostor must not have got around to it yet. He’s safe.”

There was an awkward pause as it was clear no one wanted to give voice to the next obvious question: Could they save Red?

Thankfully, White himself broke the silence. “Lime… how much do you know about surgery?”

Lime looked shocked before listing out a string of qualifications and following it up with, “It’s not my specialty, though…”

“Doesn’t have to be. Anything is better than nothing. If we do nothing, he’ll become an Impostor.”

“If he dies or has complications, though…” Lime said, his expression as strained as his voice.

“He might. But I think of the choices, he’d prefer we try rather than just letting it happen, am I correct?” White asked crisply, slipping back into the cool mask of the scientist. Possibly to better convince Lime through some semblance of authority or detachment, though Black privately thought it was more for White’s own benefit than Lime’s.

Lime drew a breath, absently rubbing at the edge of the bandage on his thigh. Black reached out to stop him from potentially aggravating the wound. Lime glanced up at him before asking, “You know Red better than I do.” He turned his gaze to White to include him in that comment.

White gave a significant stare to Black who said, “He has a family.” That’s all that he felt was necessary to say.

Lime sighed and nodded, looking back to White. “All right — tell me what to do.”

ඞ。。。。。

It was risky. As far as they knew it had never been attempted before. On top of that, their medical supplies were now depleted and the equipment anything but cutting edge. White contacted their superiors at LEGION headquarters to give them a brief overview of the situation and get input from whoever was at-hand to advise about the surgery attempt. 

Updating on everything else going on was understandably set aside until later.

The surgery took over an hour of preparation and more than three hours to accomplish, during which they had only themselves to rely on. Lime took lead with White assisting and Black acting as an extra pair of hands and eyes. They were pretty certain in the end that they got all of the traces of the Impostor’s “spawn” — but none of them were experts in the area. 

It could still be there, lurking. 

That unsettling feeling lingered in them all. 

The surgery complete and their gloves scoured clean and disinfected, Lime and White more thoroughly checked Blue for a third time armed with knowledge of what a young Impostor spawn looked like inside a body as it tried to grow and take control. Thankfully he still showed no signs of infection, so they felt fairly safe in concluding that he’d just been mauled “for the fun of it” and to make the Impostor’s job of framing him and sowing confusion easier.

After it was all over, Lime curled up against Black and cried as quietly as possible, the stress of the night catching up to him. Black just held him and tried to soothe him until the other man fell into an exhausted sleep against his chest. Black would have dearly loved to join him in a nap, but didn’t have the luxury. Not yet.

Once Lime had settled down, Black and White talked softly about their options. 

There weren’t really many available to them. They weren’t stupid enough to stay behind and let MIRA take charge of them. They had to resume communications with their superiors and request an extraction. Their people at LEGION would want to scour the site for as much information as possible if there was time before MIRA would send its own team. They would also want the Impostor, Yellow’s body and the Beelzebub corpse, and if at all possible, Red to study. 

Anyone who survived an Impostor attack — regardless of whether or not they were wounded — was under suspicion of being infected, so it was honestly best to bring all three of the surviving humans with them lest they become lab rats or pariahs. 

It was the last bit that they weren’t sure about the reactions of the humans in question. Rescuing them from MIRA might not be what they wanted. Their rescue team would be Daemons, after all — aliens that were practically considered monsters, or at least ancient enemies of humans. LEGION had even lived on through human myth as a particularly terrifying group of Daemons, so if they were familiar with those old legends, the reaction might be even more strongly negative. Even if those around the human survivors managed to pretend to be humans themselves, there was always the chance one of them would figure it out and take it poorly. 

On top of that, of the three only Lime was conscious and able to make the call — and he couldn’t think about it for long. Every passing hour made it more likely that MIRA would send a recovery team. Or, worse, a raid team to remove all evidence — including exterminating every living thing left at 339.

As loath as he was to do it, once he and White had agreed on what they wanted to say, Black woke Lime up and broached the topic, putting everything as gently as possible. White chose to play ‘bad cop’ and said all the things that Black couldn’t bring himself to.

“But… I can’t make that decision for them!” Lime protested, looking as if he’d been asked to kick a puppy. “It’s not my place! I — I barely felt right about the surgery!”

“Lime… it doesn’t have to be forever. We can figure something out for them once they’ve been given a clean bill of health. Or, really, once they’re safe enough to travel,” Black reassured him. “We’re not taking you captive.”

“After what you’ve learned about MIRA after this, do you really want to risk finding out what MIRA might do to figure out if you’re an Impostor? What if they decide to silence you because they suspect you might tell the galaxy inconvenient truths about what they’ve been up to?” White pointed out coolly.

“Their families will worry about them…” Lime said in a feeble voice.

“But it’s better than the alternatives,” White replied. His crisp tone gave no wiggle room. White played ‘bad cop’ well, but Black could see his attitude towards Lime had softened over the course of the night. There were no insults or glares designed to make his little medic cower.

Lime finally sighed and nodded. “As long as they get a choice about what to do when they’re able to make their own choices. And if they can’t travel home, then I want your promise that they won’t be cut off entirely from their loved ones. That you can do something for them…”

White actually smiled. “Sure, Little Rabbit. I can promise that much. I’ll make them draw up a contract to cover it, okay? Surely humans know how much Daemons _love_ their contracts…”

This made Lime offer a tiny smile in return before he tucked against Black’s chest. The warm feeling that rose inside of Black helped make up for a lot of his exhaustion.

A call was put in and within a short span of time, they had given a shorthand account of what had happened to their superiors and were preparing for the extraction team to sneak into their airspace.

It was decided that Polus 339 would break off all contact with MIRA instead of reporting what had happened. The LEGION team Black and White belonged to had already tapped into the MIRA communications system and monitored them in the meantime. The last transmission that was relayed to them was that Forte was going to wait until a few hours after the storm had died down before reporting the situation to his superiors at MIRA. White’s opinion was that Forte was trying to give them as much time as possible to survive — Forte had apparently said something to White that indicated he thought a raid team was likely if “things got out of hand” … and it certainly had.

They had time, so White left to watch over the Impostor while Black and Lime retreated to rest for a few hours while they waited for the other Daemons to arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters and an epilogue remaining with this story. :o
> 
> [Edited] I am officially switching to posting one chapter per week (Tuesdays) to give me a little more time to work on/edit the next story in the series. That way I can just start posting the next story instead of being AFK for a few weeks. :) Just letting you know for those people who usually read on Fridays and missed my question earlier!


	19. Sparks and Embers Laid to Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lime puts the moves on Black and later gets closure with Blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little spicy in the first part of this (nearly double-long!) chapter. It would probably be a PG-13 scene in a movie at most. If that’s not your speed, once it gets too hot for you, you can just skip ahead until you start seeing dialog again. :)

As if they’d been doing this for years rather than mere hours, when White walked off and left them alone, Lime slid his hand into Black’s and laced fingers with him. Black responded by lifting their hands to his lips to kiss Lime’s knuckles through the gloves, making Lime’s heart flutter and his cheeks flush.

“Should I walk to you to your room?” Black asked softly, his gently glowing eyes so intent on his face that even though Lime didn’t look directly, he could feel them examining every flicker of his eyelashes. Black was asking more than just that surface question and since Lime was wondering the same things, it was easy to pick up on.

“Stay with me?” Lime asked softly. “I need to get out of this suit, take a shower, and nap.”

There was a slight pause before Black very carefully asked, “Stay with you for the nap?”

Lime smiled, looking up at him in a way he hoped was flirtatious without exactly being seductive. He’d be too embarrassed even if he had the energy to back it up. “…for all of it…?”

Black returned his smile, his eyes shifting from forest green, to glass green, to blooming yellow roses again. Paired with his silvery curled horns and a sort of radiant energy he still emitted, the Daemon was incredibly bewitching. 

It was surprising to him how little Black’s looks actually changed from his human to his Daemonic form other than the horns, glowing eyes, and his dark hair seemingly now being lighter than air. Whether it was simply that subtle or his exhausted human brain couldn’t grasp things, Black looked very much the same just… more _Daemonic_ and powerful. 

Honestly, it was reassuring.

“You…” Black began, looking a little as if he were conflicted and then regretful before he sighed. “I don’t know if I’m making the wrong assumptions here but… We’re probably not in any shape to do much more than hold each other. And it’s probably important you have the time to process your feelings before we do more regardless.”

Lime couldn’t help but smile and tug Black down so he could tuck his face against Black’s. It seemed to be something that Black liked doing so he thought he’d like it if he did it too. He was rewarded with a soft, contented sound from Black.

“…I appreciate it. You’re probably right about being too tired for anything more, but… I know what I want. I might not have known what it was before we talked in O2, but the time we spent apart made it pretty clear that I don’t want to be separated from you. Today I was able to put a name on it — _before_ everything went crazy.” He leaned back to look properly up at Black before giving him a smile. “I love you. Whatever we need to do to make this work, I want to try. If you want the same thing, you don’t have to hesitate. I won’t either.”

Black stared at him intensely. Lime had thought yellow irises were the most vivid display of Black’s emotions that could show in his eyes, but he was wrong. The Daemon’s eyes actually sparked — literally sparked — and burned bright enough to hurt to look at. Lime had to avert his gaze at the same time Black’s lips dropped to his, his hands releasing Lime’s so he could wrap his arms around him tightly. 

Lime could feel Black tremble as he held him and as much as he enjoyed the kiss that made him feel as if he were melting, he also was flustered as he wondered if he’d accidentally said something incredibly forward. Then that thought was burned away as Black’s passion replaced all capacity for thought. 

He was sure it was fine — there was no going back on these feelings for him anyway.

Though he tried to match passion for passion, Lime was far too shattered from the long night to do more than express a small portion of his feelings. Black was perceptive enough to end things before Lime got frustrated or either of them was likely to get carried away in spite of themselves. A crash and burn in the middle of things would be unfortunate.

“S-so… My room?” Lime asked breathlessly, clinging to Black since his knees were too weak to support him anymore. Without hesitation, Black scooped him up and started towards Lime’s room. “Wait — you were injured! You can’t carry me — I can walk!”

“I’m fine… You’re hurt and I like holding you. Let me?” Black replied, smiling down at him with his kaleidoscope eyes. Though softened from when he’d shouted orders earlier, his voice still had that temple bell quality that took his already deep and beautiful voice and turned it into music. Lime caved immediately.

Black radiated a cat’s smugness as he walked, his large hands gripping him close as if he were afraid Lime would be taken from him, so Lime settled against his chest, shyly pressing a kiss to the Daemon’s pulse. Black’s skin was hot against his lips — hot enough to feel feverish. If the show of hellfire earlier hadn’t already explained his hot nature, Lime would have insisted they check his temperature. Instead, he was able to explore the sensation with his lips guilt-free, prompting a low rumble of pleasure and mild frustration from Black.

“You’re going to make holding back really difficult, aren’t you?” Black asked with amusement as they entered Lime’s room.

Lime couldn’t help but flash a cheeky grin up at him as he slowly slid out of his arms to carefully test his weight on his bad leg. “Well…” He couldn’t honestly deny that. They were both tired and ragged, but Black was so tempting and the relief at being alive was making him feel almost giddy and reckless. 

Black uttered another long, almost helpless sound before dipping down again to pull him into another kiss, which Lime returned as best he could. 

Lime was the one to make the first move, hands blindly seeking the fastenings on Black’s bio-suit and unsnapping them as he found them. Black took that as permission to do the same. Lime’s hands slid into Black’s bio-suit the moment he got it unzipped and almost desperately sought out the areas the Impostor had stabbed or mauled, verifying the skin was whole. He’d seen through the rips in the bio-suit that there were no open wounds, but he needed the reassurance. Lime expected to feel a different sensation in the newly healed skin, or possibly Black reacting to some sort of tenderness there, but instead Black almost purred with pleasure at his touch.

Like magic, Black got Lime out of his bio-suit and then quickly shrugged out of his own damaged suit, maintaining as much bodily contact between them as he could the entire time. Lime smiled, distantly thinking there was something almost poetic about them having suited up together on their way to Polus and now they were helping each other out of the bio-suits as they prepared to leave it.

Once undressed, they made their way into the connected bathroom and were soon twined together under the nice multi-jet spray. Like horny teenagers, things were passionate until they awkwardly had to break apart once Lime yelped because the bandage over his wound had pulled painfully. His jerky movement caused him to slip a little on the shower floor and he got a face full of hot water, making him sputter and both of them laugh and apologize to each other.

It wasn’t all embarrassing, though. Black smiled down at him, running his strong fingers through Lime’s soaked mop of hair until it was slicked back out of his face. He looked at Lime with his yellow rose eyes which still sparked and burned. As if he were the most precious person in the universe. If Lime hadn’t already been in love, seeing that usually stoic face look at him with such a tender expression would have made him instantly smitten. 

As it was, he just fell deeper.

Lime wondered if this was what it meant to have your heart stolen — if the stories about Daemons stealing souls came from being utterly enchanted like this. Or maybe it could happen like this with a human too? Because with the way Black’s expression filled with yearning, it might not have been just _him_ who felt that way.

Overcome with shyness, Lime broke eye contact and as a result, got a proper eyeful of Black for the first time. He’d always known the other man was built, but he had never seen it so plainly. And… well… he saw _everything_. Gorgeous didn’t begin to cover it. Once he got past his initial appreciation, his eyes quickly searched for wounds and found nothing that suggested Black had ever been injured in his life, much less had his arm shredded in front of him only hours ago.

His worries dealt with, Lime let himself indulge in curiosity instead. When they’d first got undressed, he hadn’t really looked at Black and had instead been thoroughly occupied with Black’s eyes and mouth and tongue. Now his eyes were drawn to the markings that shimmered and glowed on his skin. They were almost holographic, as if each projected a subtle ghost of itself a few millimeters above his skin. They definitely gave off more of the ‘otherworldly’ feel he’d expected from a Daemon.

Lime lifted his eyes to ask silent permission from Black who nodded and held still as Lime’s fingertips gently explored his body. First tracing over the markings he was sure weren’t simply tattoos and then frankly indulging in the pleasure of following particularly attractive lines of muscle. Lime couldn’t help but let his lips quirk up in satisfaction as he saw Black’s body tighten and flex and heard his breath catch as he clearly held himself back.

After a few moments of this Black groaned, leaning his head back against the shower wall and closing his eyes, though a smile played on his lips even as he complained. “You make it hard to behave…”

Lime was surprised at the husky chuckle that he produced in response. He didn’t look up, blushing a little as he tried to understand the holographic markings and how they worked by drawing the tips of his nails down Black’s chest. He wondered if it were like a moth’s false eyes or even something like a zebra’s motion dazzle…? Well, certainly they would work as a display to attract a mate… 

“Yeah… I know the feeling. You make me want to break all sorts of rules.” His tongue tentatively flicked over a marking that meandered over Black’s collarbone, unable to resist the impulse any longer.

An arm snaked around his waist and pulled him against Black’s body. A moment later, Black lightly tugged his head back by the hair and almost roughly kissed him. Feeling heady with power, Lime smiled into the kiss and submitted with a smug sounding mewl of pleasure before Black managed to kiss him until he was dizzy and clinging to him. Again. It pleased him to anticipate a relationship where all of Black’s gentle affection was balanced by this passionate nature. He tried to return the favor, wanting Black to know just how much he liked it.

When it was clear that going any further would lead to somewhere they couldn’t follow through with properly, they broke apart and helped each other wash. Between more chaste kisses and touches, they talked to one another.

“Is this you as you are? I mean — as a Daemon?” Lime asked, stumbling over how to ask.

“Mmn. Is it all right?” Black didn’t seem worried about it so much as curious about what Lime really wanted to know.

Lime squirmed as Black’s hot fingers traced over a sore area where he’d been grabbed, but immediately relaxed when Black’s palm paused to comfort the area, easing sore muscles through the application of warmth. “You’re beautiful. I just didn’t know what to expect. Daemons have been described in so many different ways.”

Black nodded and offered a small, wry smile. Lime was pretty sure he was blushing. “There are some of us that are less human looking than others but… If I’m not mistaken, many mythologies describe the gods creating humans in their own image, right? That’s exactly it. There was nothing sacred about it — just scientists seeing what they could do without thinking about if they should. As you can imagine, ever since then our philosophy, morality, and politics have been caught up in discussing the rights and wrongs of it and how much responsibility our people have over humanity…” 

The Daemon sighed, clearly overwhelmed with the scope of what it would take to even begin to explain the complexities of it all to Lime. For someone who wasn’t normally talkative, it probably seemed even more intimidating. Some of what he had mentioned had clearly made it into human myths and philosophy as well, but it was obvious it was a conversation not really suited for the occasion.

“Well… it’d make for an interesting discussion one day, maybe but… I guess the important thing is where do the Daemons fall with… uhm… our situation?” Black looked at him and Lime quickly added, “I mean… a Daemon and a human having a relationship… Is that okay?”

Black smiled, his expression softening. “As long as all parties are willing and of age, nothing between us is forbidden or even frowned upon. Daemons have even sometimes brought their human partners home with them for quite a long time. Though… you might feel more comfortable living somewhere with more humans, so we’d probably want to live in one of the fringe sectors…” He hesitated before shyly asking. “Is that… what you’re thinking?”

“Wherever I can live and be with you, that’s where I’m happy to go. I don’t care if it’s difficult at first. My family moved to eight different planets in three different sectors by the time I was sixteen. The longest I spent in one place was for the last three or four years of my compulsory education. I was recruited straight out of school to my agency and they sent me all over before they had me join MIRA. I can adapt to anything.” Lime didn’t want Black stressing over it.

“Good to know, though I’m pretty sure it’ll be good for both of us to start out at a place like Space Station Para Disus. Or at least somewhere in the ED-3IV Enclosure. It… might take me awhile to get us there with my work contract, though… We’ll have to play that part by ear.”

Lime reassured Black with a kiss, looping his arms around his neck. “It’s fine. I guess things are going to get pretty complicated for me too. Before I make contact with my agency again, I guess I’d want to know it’s safe for me to. And maybe I’ll have to wrap up some loose ends myself.”

Black’s arms tightened a little and his yellow eyes became green-spangled before he nodded. “We’ll figure it out together.”

The shower didn’t last much longer after that. Sobered by the more serious conversation, their exhaustion had a chance to catch up with both of them. They did one last rinse before drying off and climbing into Lime’s bed, tangled in each other and basking in the full body skin-on-skin contact.

As they began to relax and drift off to sleep, they whispered their real names to each other with all of the weight of a vow. In many ways, it almost was one. 

Black’s true name had been by necessity forced to be secret before this. And even discounting that, working for MIRA for any significant length of time tended to lead to its employees embracing their color-coded naming system. Some people found the semi-anonymity freeing — a mask that wiped the social slate clean. There was no awkwardness about whether or not you remembered someone’s name or title, you simply looked at their bio-suit color and if in doubt, for a mark signifying a prestige designation like being upgraded from Yellow to Lemon or Gold. 

Having someone’s personal name was a sign of deep trust or intimacy. Even for as close as Lime had been to Brown and Blue, they’d never exchanged names. Lime’s last thought as he drifted off was that it was clear to him now why none of them had made that move.

ඞ。。。。。

When the drop team from LEGION arrived, things happened very quickly.

Unlike with MIRA dropships, the Daemon shuttles they sent didn’t need a dedicated landing pad, so they were able to send two that found adequate space to land. Red and Blue were seen to by a small team of medical professionals who made sure they were safely stable before bringing them aboard one of the shuttles, followed by Lime who walked the team through what he and White had done for their crewmates.

Yellow’s body, the corpse of the Beelzebub, and “Brown” were each individually contained and loaded onto the second shuttle — dividing them distinctly between the “safe” and “unsafe” shuttles. The “unsafe” one took off immediately once its payload was secure so that a third could take its place.

Black and White guided the rest of the team through the site to familiarize them with it. Seeing things first-hand and how the incident wasn’t contained to one area but rather spread out across nearly all sections of Polus 339, their team leader decided the best course of action would be to raze the site themselves before they left. So while White continued to act as guide, Black went through everyones’ private quarters to make sure to bring as many of the crew’s personal items with them as he could. Other LEGION teammates raided Polus 339 for information, taking away security footage and downloading data in bulk now that they didn’t have to worry about possibly leaving behind traces of their presence. In the last fifteen minutes on the ground, Lime and White helped Black rescue what they could.

Roughly an hour after the LEGION team landed, all the survivors were loaded into the second shuttle and evacuated. 

Within a week, the crew of Polus 339 were being officially reported as killed when the seismic stabilizers failed due to the storm knocking out the power supply. Very little remained for the MIRA recovery team to find other than part of O2, including the Creeper Tree stubbornly clinging to life even as it hung half over an open lava pit. The rest of Polus 339 had apparently been destroyed by lava or fallen over the cliff in the landslide.

And that, as they say, was the end of that.

Officially.

  
ඞ。。。。。

“Lime… Good to see you.” Blue greeted him breezily from his hospital bed as they entered the room some weeks later. The hospital ward was apparently one of the many scattered throughout the warren of a space station they’d been brought to after their rescue and this one was hidden behind several layers of security. “Ah, and Black too. Almost didn’t recognize you in your civvies. You both look well.”

“Blue!” Lime called back happily. “Hello, thank-you; it’s nice to see you awake again. I brought you a friend. It’s a special type of bonsai they have! It’s super easy to take care of, so it’ll be good for beginners, what do you think?” 

Lime proudly showed Blue a miniature tree that had leaves that made it look as if it were eternally blooming. He pulled the overbed tray closer so he could set the bonsai directly in front of his friend.

“Ah, lovely,” Blue cooed with a little smirk on his lips. His deep blue hair was tousled on the pillow as he shifted to get more comfortable. He was visibly thinner and his color wasn’t as good as normal, but his eyes were calm and aware. He was even able to move a little, managing to make it look dignified and graceful rather than painful. “A tree small enough that even you can get down from it without issue.”

“Oi… The doctors didn’t say I _couldn’t_ give you noogies.”

“It’s beautiful, Lime, thank you,” Blue quickly added with a smile.

It had taken Blue awhile to be fit for company. The Impostor had done severe damage to his body and the doctors had elected to induce a coma for the first several days to get him safely through the worst of it. Thankfully he responded well to treatment. Daemonic medicine was more advanced than human medicine, but humans weren’t built to snap back as quickly as Daemons might from injuries like those. Hopeful prognostics put him out of physical rehabilitation within a year, if he put his mind to it.

“Speaking of the doctors, by the way, I heard that I’ll beat their estimated recovery time because I am, quote, ‘too much of an overachiever to bear falling behind and would work harder out of spite of anyone who says any different’, unquote,” Blue said dryly.

“And I’ll stand by it too,” Lime fired back. And then felt immediately terrible for it, so he rather sheepishly slid behind the cover of the bonsai.

Blue chuckled. “You’re right, though. Damn. Now I’ve no excuse to rest on my laurels whenever I wish to sulk.”

“You’ll get over it,” Black said softly, hanging back towards the door — either guarding it or trying not to intrude.

“I must,” Blue agreed. “I don’t wish to spoil Lime’s faith in me, do I?” Lime began to launch a friendly quip in reply, but Blue continued smoothly and stopped him in his tracks. “After all… it appears Brown ratted me out as a traitor already, based on the questions our inquisitive rescuers had for me about MIRA.”

Silence descended in the room, dropping heavy like a curtain over a play that opened and closed on the same night. 

Blue remained smiling gently, just a touch of wariness in his dark eyes. Lime could feel Black’s supportive presence behind him. He needed that comfort, because he could feel Blue was prepared to be rejected and it made his heart hurt.

“You’re not a traitor… If you are, I am, right?” Lime said after a moment, his voice a little choked with emotion. “I was a corporate spy, after all.”

“But you weren’t betraying _me_ by being a corporate spy, were you? It was my job to watch you and report back to MIRA once I had enough evidence of what you were up to. Everyone at Polus 339 was suspected of this, that, or the other. Eventually, I would have had to turn someone over before they decided I was incompetent and replaced me.”

“…all of us?” Lime asked, somewhat bewildered.

“Indeed. Several suspected spies — Red was innocent, of course. A probable thief. The son of someone who’d been fired for gross negligence and joined MIRA using false credentials. And someone who’d been at several sites where crewmates had gone missing. The last one being Brown, obviously.”

Lime glanced back at Black, who nodded slightly to confirm this wasn’t news to him. He looked back at Blue and just shrugged. “You were just doing your job. I wouldn’t have hated you for it… I’d’ve hated myself for making you have to turn me in. I would have understood that was hard for you.”

Blue’s long fingers reached slowly out to touch the leaves of the bonsai. His expression was still and his gaze a little unfocused as if he were thinking very hard about whatever he was considering saying next. There was a rustling from one of the graceful branches that made Blue shudder and withdraw his hand with a sigh.

“…if I’d caught him earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this. He said as much himself. He’d given me so many hints and opportunities and I couldn’t pull the trigger. Because of me, two people are dead and Red…” He trailed off, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “We could have all died. Perhaps I should have.”

“No!” Lime broke out, feeling his heart squeeze painfully in his chest. “You can’t think like that! I’m so relieved — happy! — you lived! And it’s not your fault that it… That Brown was what he was. You didn’t kill anyone — he did.”

“If you had definite proof, you would have said something, wouldn’t you?” Black asked from the doorway, his voice calm and soft. Not gentled like you’d talk to an invalid, but with no trace of censure.

“I…” Blue took a long breath before releasing it, his shoulders slumping as he opened his eyes again; dropping them again with shame after meeting Lime’s gaze. “I don’t know. The two of us have worked together for a long time in MIRA terms. Three years in close proximity — and never split up other than the downtime between tours. He… knew where to set the hooks in me. I even saw most of them. Once I started to suspect what he was… all I could do was hope it just gave him a perverse sense of humor, not made him dangerous.” There was a bitter twist of his lips before he continued. “If I ever had a reason to suspect him in any of the disappearances, then, yes… I would have turned him over. But if he was actually involved with those, he was bloody careful with crafting his alibis.”

“Isn’t that a good enough answer?” Black asked. When both Blue and Lime looked over at him, he shrugged. “You can’t be faulted in being a loyal friend. He took advantage of knowing exactly where you would draw the line. Monsters like that always do.”

“Yeah. It’s not like you knew for sure Impostors were evil, right? The jury’s still out on that. Like you said — he might have been harmless,” Lime said encouragingly, reaching out with the intention of gently touching his hand. He pulled away when he saw Blue flinch. “Sorry.”

Blue shook his head. “No — I’m sorry, Lime. It… may take me awhile to stand being touched. It’s not you.” His tone changed as he pulled one of his most debonair smiles to his lips and lifted his chin. A brave facade, but thin enough that the other two in the room could see through it easily. “As if I didn’t already need the services of a therapist. Now I shall have to lounge about and talk about my mother until even those nosy brain witches get bored of it. The doctors have said even if I’m able to parkour around the hospital they won’t let me go unless I can con a therapist into signing off on me. I imagine it’s so when I go back home, I’m less likely to rant about being kidnapped by demons and angels, hey?” He threw a sharp look their way.

Lime’s corporate spy training kicked in, so though surprised, all he allowed was for his eyes to widen and for himself to laugh with confusion as if laughing awkwardly at a joke he wasn’t sure he should. He could feel his body’s tension and had the idea that Blue probably saw it too.

“…that’s right,” Black said bluntly from behind him. Seeing Lime actually stiffen at that, Black moved over to lay a warm, reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. Relax.”

“That wasn’t exactly a trick, you know,” Blue said, somewhat apologetically. “I suspected you and White for awhile. Don’t worry, though — that was all me. MIRA has no idea. They thought you were attached to one of our governments. I… may have passed along information that assisted that assumption. Just enough to keep them off my back and not enough to make them want to drop the hammer.”

“Appreciated,” Black said, a note of dry amusement in his deep voice.

“Naturally,” Blue replied.

There was a brief pause that started to edge into awkward. It killed Lime to see Blue try to put on an easy-going front. And worse, that Blue was failing at it. “I… know you joked about it, but… if you want to talk to someone about it, I’ll listen. You’re not alone, you know.”

Blue stiffened and another bitter smile crossed his lips before he rather deliberately softened his expression. “Dear Lime, it’s lovely of you, but…” 

He hesitated, his eyes sliding to the other side of the room to stare blindly at a painting of a peaceful flower-covered cottage next to a lake. It seemed to be the Daemon vision of a normal piece of art a human might find in a hospital, but missed the mark by being a real, nicely framed painting rather than a print and rather larger than hospital art would normally be. It was very pretty, though.

“But?” Lime prompted gently after a minute.

“Brown was your friend too,” Blue finally said. “Obviously I’m not aware of what he might have put you through, but… somehow I’m still fond enough of him to want to preserve the idea that part of him was truly our friend. Maybe that is a hook he put in me I’ll never be able to bear to dig out, even though I should.”

The way Blue said that was so soft and sad that Lime had to blink away tears. “Were the two of you—” He broke off abruptly, not having needed Black’s warning squeeze on his shoulder to know not to finish that question.

Blue answered anyway, uttering a light laugh that sounded genuinely amused. “You’ve wanted to ask that question since you knew Brown and I were close. I’ve seen you on the verge of asking a hundred times and always pretended I didn’t understand you. Fitting that I could only ever answer it now.” There was a pause as he leaned back, pushing his hair out of his face to give himself a moment. “No. Not at all. I was… intrigued by him. Fascinated. He used that to lead me along the garden path. And we both carefully kept each other an arm’s length away. Tantalizingly close to the line. But we never crossed it. I didn’t trust him and he was only using me.”

There was a bleakness in his dark eyes that hooding them couldn’t quite hide. There was more to the story, of course. How could there not be? Blue didn’t even hint towards the lead-up to their final encounter. For his sake, Lime hoped Blue never saw it coming. But considering how Brown had toyed with Lime, he wouldn’t bet on it.

Lime didn’t realize he was crying for Blue until Black’s fingers gently wiped away the tears. His friend spoke so matter-of-factly, even gently, as if more worried for Lime’s feelings than his own. That hurt the most. 

“Ah — s-sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“You didn’t. I simply felt like sharing…” Lime watched as Blue’s concerned eyes flicked up at Black. The look he passed Black was clear: _comfort him_. Black immediately obeyed, wrapping his arms around Lime’s shoulders and pulling him back into a hug. “Next time you visit, don’t let me bring you to tears, all right? I might not have Black here to hug you for me next time. You know I’m bad with tears…”

Blue looked away awkwardly, his ability to pretend to be cool and collected crumbling.

“You’re kicking me out?” Lime asked, aghast.

“Well, if not me, then the nurses would shortly. They were very clear how long I could have visitors. And I want to have the shovel talk with Black before they throw him out. You should visit Red. I’m to understand he’s only a few doors down and since you’re medically trained and have the skills to talk your way into places you shouldn’t be, it should be easy for you, right?” Blue briskly laid out the plan, giving Lime no room to really protest.

“…what’s the shovel talk?” Lime asked weakly.

“Ah, you know. ‘Take care of my dear Lime or I’ve got a shovel and a lonely planet to bury you on.’ That sort of thing.” This time when Blue smiled, he meant it — his smile was warm and gentle. He meant the bit about the shovel talk too. Lime smiled anyway, shaking his head a little. “Before you go, though…” Blue looked to Black almost for permission, his mask slipping a little to show the uncertainty underneath it. Whatever he saw in Black’s face must have reassured him. “I can’t give you a hug but… I do want to give you something that I hope that will be several hugs all rolled into one… Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Lime said, gently pulling out of Black’s arms to move closer to his friend. 

Blue beckoned him closer so he could lean in. Lime expected Blue to whisper something teasing about Black or maybe pass him some bit of information about Brown or MIRA he didn’t want the Daemons to know. Instead, Blue softly murmured his name to him. There was no sense of a ‘vow’ the way there had been with Black, but in its own way it meant just as much. It was worth far more than a few hugs to Lime.

“Oh…” Blue said, once he realized he’d made Lime choke up. “No, no. Get another hug from Black and shoo. Don’t you dare reciprocate either! I won’t listen right now. …wait until I’ve got a few months of recovery under my belt, okay? I’m not ready for that now, especially if you’ll blubber about it.” Blue gently panicked, swinging wildly between comforting and joking as his beautiful hands fluttered in the air in distress.

It made Lime laugh wetly before tucking against Black’s chest for his hug and a pet to his hair. “I’ll be back in a bit, then… Please neither of you scare the other.”

“I wouldn’t dare!” Blue protested with genuine horror. “You would absolutely spring a leak then. Go! And don’t come back until you’re dry!”

Lime laughed, rose up to give Black a kiss on the cheek, and quickly left the room, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an aside, that was as spicy as this story gets. I am considering writing spicy/smutty side-stories for the Beyond MIRA characters on my smut-pseud, so if you’re interested, let me know so I know how to prioritize. :)


	20. Closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black has a chat with Blue, White interrupts a date, and Lime continues to show he can be proactive too.

“Are we really going to have the shovel talk?” Black asked after they heard Lime’s footsteps recede down the hall.

“Of course not,” Blue said. “It’s not necessary. You got the message, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“There. That was simple,” Blue said almost primly, adjusting his bed so he could sit up more. 

Everything about him became less soft and a bit more formal now that Lime wasn’t there. Sharper. Black was reminded rather strongly that he was dealing with a professional informant — probably even a trained spy. His own body language shifted and he went somewhat on guard.

“What did you want to say to me, then?” Black asked.

Blue’s eyebrows jumped up in what appeared to be genuine surprise. “I? My dear Black — I kept you behind because I could tell _you_ wanted to say something to _me_.”

Black paused before nodding. “Ah… That’s true.” The same question he’d had for Blue back on Polus had never left him. He even expected that Blue was going to say something today, but nothing of the sort had happened. “You’re not going to tell Lime how you feel?”

“No, never.” Blue’s reply was short and to the point.

“Why? Don’t humans do that? Confess their feelings in hopes things work out?”

“And I ought try that in front of you? Perish the thought. If I wanted my heart crushed in front of an audience, there are less painful ways.”

“But it doesn’t seem as if you’d do it even if I weren’t here. I thought humans did it for closure.”

Blue made a sound and rolled his eyes elegantly. “You’re bloody persistent, aren’t you? Ah — that’s not a complaint. I like that, really. Heavens know you needed that trait with Lime. I never would have helped you out if you’d been the type to just roll over and give up like the others who pined for him. Though it’s a terribly inconvenient trait for me under the circumstances.”

Black casually crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Blue, waiting for him to stop posturing and answer him.

“Ugh… Don’t give me such a look…” Blue carefully pushed the overbed tray away to move the pretty bonsai to a safer place than right in front of him. “…I don’t need closure with Lime. I saw the writing on the wall from the moment the two of you met. Like two stars in an intercepting orbit — the conclusion was inevitable.” He dropped his eyes, letting his heavy lids hood them and obscure his expression. “I didn’t deserve him regardless. I was assigned to catch him red-handed and turn him over to MIRA. Every moment I spent with him was colored by that. I was never going to have what I wanted.”

“So you didn’t even try.” 

There was something to their back and forth that felt as if he were helping Blue confess his sins, or at least purge some of the bitterness in his heart he might not have got out of himself some other way. Under other circumstances, he would have left Blue’s pain alone, but Lime had precious few friends from what he understood. Blue probably had fewer.

For both their sakes, he couldn’t let it go.

“Hn. And you would have, clearly.” Blue smiled thinly, obviously torn between different emotions. “I think it would break Lime’s heart to know how I felt and not be able to reciprocate. Why hurt him when I already know the answer? I like to think I’m not that selfish.”

“Perhaps. But you never gave him a chance to decide. Maybe if you had, I wouldn’t have had any opportunity to win him over.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. In all the time we knew each other, Lime never once looked at me the way he did you. If he had, maybe I would have tried.” He paused before laughing a short, pained little laugh. “No. I’m not sure I ever would have had that kind of courage, knowing I was spying on him. He would have had to have made the first move for that, and you can imagine how much hope I’d have of that ever happening.”

Sympathetic, Black decided he must have pushed Blue as far as he could. He supposed it was some sort of closure, in any case. If Blue were this adamant, then he probably wouldn’t hold regrets.

“Tell me, Black…” Blue said after the silence went on a little too long. “If it were you, would you want to be told how someone felt about you even if it were hopeless for them?”

Black thought about it a moment before shrugging slightly. “…it would be cleaner that way, wouldn’t it? Maybe it would be easier for them to put down the torch. And I could take care not to carelessly trample on their feelings.” He could tell there was something to the question, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

Blue made a wheezing little laugh as if he were about to do something he knew to be foolish and even painful, but he was no longer afraid of the pain. Black felt a prickle of unease at that, worried that Blue might do something like try to stand. Instead, Blue flung his hands wide and said, “Well, don’t regret it, then. I’m not a _complete_ coward. And you just promised to be gentle. Maybe it’ll be easier with you.”

Black realized then — just as Blue had clearly intended — more or less what was going to be said.

“One of the reasons I didn’t try anything with Lime was because I wouldn’t have been content with just what we would have had. He’s sweet and lovely and perfect in so many ways as I’m sure you’d agree, but… I’m also attracted to the dangerous type. And I’m the greedy sort — I want both flavors. Something Brown was quick to notice and not the least bit interested in other than as a tool for his bloody mind-games. Neither of you strike me as the sort interested in that sort of arrangement. Even still, I would have been yours for the asking. …still am, honestly.”

Blue stopped his half-mad ramble and gave him a wry smile. No masks. Just a vulnerable, battered man finally revealing the cards he’d kept closest to his heart, always too afraid to lay them on the table. His dark eyes were clear. As he’d said, he knew his hand wasn’t a winning one before he played it.

Black had always respected Blue before this. Now he admired him.

Before he could respond, Blue shook his head, interrupting him. He tried to sound light and breezy, but he was clearly agitated as words tumbled out of him. “No — please don’t say it. Take pity on this poor invalid. As I said — I already know the answer. I just wanted to try this ‘closure’ idea of yours to see what I think of it. There’s no need for action on your part. As I thought — knowing something is hopeless is just as devastating whether I say something or not.”

“People can behave unexpectedly, though. We’re not old-model androids with pre-programmed responses. What if I’d accepted? Wouldn’t it have been worth the try?” He felt a prickle of frustration at Blue — not for himself, but because Blue seemed to be fatalistic about his chances of _ever_ finding happiness.

“Don’t make me laugh — I’m more stitches, staples, and glue than person right now and might unravel entirely. You’d never have said yes. Not in a million years.”

“You’re so certain of that,” Black said, frowning.

“I’m good at reading people,” Blue replied simply.

Black sighed and drew a breath. When he looked over at Blue, he made sure to force Blue to hold his gaze rather than avoiding it. Only then did he speak — slowly and carefully, so Blue would remember every word. And hopefully believe them. 

“You’re an attractive man with charming manners, a quick wit, and a loyal, generous heart. Aside from Lime, you have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard — darkly luxurious, like warm sable. The way you always seem to speak in half-riddles drives White up the wall, but I’ve always liked it. It makes me think of the trickster foxes from the old fables. You have a lot of qualities I find appealing. You’re right that I’m not looking for that sort of relationship, but I would like it if we could be friends.” 

He took a breath, feeling almost exhausted from speaking so much. But he had to add the most important bit. 

“Someday, someone will say ‘yes’.”

There was a long silence as Blue sat there in his hospital bed, looking rather stunned. Then his composure broke entirely. He blushed and finally broke eye contact to look away. “…is that so?” Clearly flustered, it took him a moment to continue. “If you say it like that, maybe one day I can dream about it.”

“Stop ‘dreaming’. Maybe you haven’t found what you want yet because you don’t believe you’ll find it.”

Blue winced slightly. “…Mmn. On second thought, you’re not my type at all. Too much spewing wisdom rather than giving me dark and broody stares like you might bite me. Go on, then. Out. Before Lime gets jealous of you spending too much time alone with another man.” He used one of his graceful hands to wave him towards the door as if shooing a fly.

Black felt his lips quirk into a smile. “He won’t. You and I are friends now, aren’t we?”

“Ah. Then, my friend, kindly fuck off so I can mope a bit about how bloody annoying it is that you were right and then go to sleep.” Black chuckled and turned towards the door. When his hand found the knob, Blue spoke up again, his voice soft and subdued. “…Bring a game next time. Chess or the like. Maybe you won’t talk so much that way.”

“Sure. Later.”

Black slid out of the room and closed the door gently shut behind himself.

ඞ。。。。。

A few days later, Black and Lime were walking hand in hand to the nearby park — or, rather, a sort of arboretum. This time of day, most people would be busy with work, so it would be fairly peaceful. It was one of the last days they had left before they would begin working, so they were going to enjoy a picnic date under trees and the glass dome that looked out onto the vast expanse of the Milky Way.

The scrape of foot on ceramic bricks alerted Black that someone was hopping down from the low wall that ran along the entrance to the park. A moment later, White landed lightly in front of them, a MIRA duffel bag over one shoulder and a jaunty grin on his lips. He was dressed casually in his typical white and grey clothing and his platinum hair was twisted back out of his face — the more stylish version of his cool scientist persona.

“Hey. Took you two long enough,” White quipped.

“Funny, I don’t remember inviting you on our date,” Black retorted, but smiled as he continued walking. “I won’t ask how you knew we’d be here.”

“I have my ways. Tch. So unfriendly. At least the Little Rabbit is happy to see me, aren’t’cha?” White winked and fell into step with them.

“Of course,” Lime replied, his expression looking torn between laughing at White’s antics and concerned about the duffel bag. “Though I’m curious as to why you were waiting for us.”

“Perfect! Then my job here is done. _Adieu_ ,” White said and pretended to start to walk away.

“W-wait a second!” Lime protested, falling neatly into White’s trap as he reached out to grab at the duffel bag to stop him from going. “Geeze… You’re both so much like cats.”

White looked over his shoulder at him and grinned. “Let me guess — he’s your guardian lion who thinks he’s a lap-cat and I’m a stray you let sleep on your porch.”

“Well…” Lime smiled and then laughed when Black leaned down to nip at his ear. “Are you here looking to sleep on our porch?”

“I’m shipping out today, so I came to say good-bye. No rest for the wicked.”

“Then you should have had more time to rest,” Lime said and impatiently continued. “What do you mean you’re shipping out? You’re not going back to work for MIRA, are you?”

“Of course I am. I’ll have you know, I’m an incredibly capable agent. LEGION teams fight over me. I’m super high-spec.”

“Yes, yes, you’re an amazingly desirable man. You know what he’s asking,” Black said, amused. He walked them into the park and picked out a spot with a nice tree and a good view of the stars. Within moments, he’d taken the blanket out of the picnic basket and spread it out on the cave grass.

“Ah — worried about me?” Without waiting for an invitation, White set down his duffel bag and joined them on the blanket.

“Obviously!” Lime said. “Everyone at LEGION was very clear that none of us can go back to our old lives safely. Even my own agency advised I stay on the Daemon side of the galaxy and consider breaking all ties with my past — or at least waiting for a few years. How can you possibly go back? And so soon?” 

While Lime listened to White with concern, Black placidly set up their picnic.

“Exactly — our _old_ lives. This is a new one. Well, actually, I’m just replacing a different White who was one of our human agents. Apparently he’s being put somewhere we’ve been curious about for awhile but haven’t had a way to infiltrate yet — and he’s not the type of agent you put into a situation like that. Coincidentally, he happens to vaguely resemble me. A hacker here, an insider with access there, and — boom. I’m someone else. The King is dead — long live the King.”

“Long live the King,” Black echoed in his most deadpan voice. “And if you steal that sandwich, they’re going to be looking for a new King.”

“So stingy. See if you get an invite to my castle.”

“Is that what you want?” Lime asked, ignoring their banter. “I kind of hoped you’d be joining us.” 

Black had fought — and won — against an Impostor, so he was being kept out of the field so that his experience could be thoroughly documented. Simulations of fights with Beelzebubs were being pulled out of archives to compare them to the fights on Polus — some of which had happened to be captured by the security cameras and some of which came from their reports. Black might even be tapped for a teaching position if they decided they wanted to keep him longer than the six month placement. Lime was asked if he’d be willing to go into his own experiences with the Impostor called “Brown” and assist in researching the possibilities of medically neutralizing Impostors. Humans were likely to be the best for treating the infected due to Daemons being compromised with their _wrath_ unless a way to suppress it was found. _Wrath_ ’s effects were something that White hadn’t complained about at the time, but his self-control did seem to be higher than average and most surgeons weren’t exactly known for dealing with combat adrenaline. It made perfect sense for LEGION to retain White too.

“Eh… I’m not really built for that kind of job. I’d get bored. Plus, I’m more useful in the field. Don’t worry — this won’t be the last time you see my handsome face. Wherever you guys end up, I’ll come visit between tours, okay?” White reached out to ruffle Lime’s hair affectionately.

Black still wasn’t entirely sure why White was treating Lime like his kid brother, but he wasn’t going to question it either. As far as he was concerned, he wanted to build up a nice “family” network, starting with their mutual friends. Lime seemed indifferent to the idea of cutting off contact with his family and other friends, but even if that was the truth it didn’t mean Lime would be happy with only him in his life.

“Still — you’d think you’d have more downtime before you went back to work,” Lime complained, leaning against Black as if unconsciously seeking comfort. Black put an arm around him and tugged him a little closer. “It’s only been a few weeks, and that’s if you count travel time. Aren’t people supposed to take more downtime if they’ve been in, uhm, some sort of hazardous situation? I know my handlers had mentioned it…”

Black and White exchanged glances and White grinned at Lime. “I’m fine, honestly. I’ve been cleared for it and I want to go back. Besides — I’m being shipped halfway across the galaxy to get to my next assignment. Even on the fast-bus, I’m going to be in hibernation for over two weeks. And that’s just to get to the local HQ for Assignment Day. I’ve got plenty of time, okay?”

“Okay,” Lime grumbled.

“Speaking of — I’d better get going.” White got to his feet and stretched before shouldering his duffel bag again. “I just wanted to say my good-byes in person. Maybe by the time I’m free again, you two lovebirds will have your own nest and a couch I can crash on. Or better — a porch.”

Lime pulled out of Black’s arms and threw his own around White in a hug. “Remember you’re not invincible, okay? I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to stitch another of my friends back together.”

Black got to his feet and likewise gave his friend a hug. Not something the two normally did, but this would be the first long tour White would be going on that Black wouldn’t be there as backup. “What he said.”

“Gracious. If you’re going to mother hen me, at least say something better than ‘ditto’,” White sneered, but he smiled awkwardly and glanced away. “…yeah, okay. I’ll remember. Catch you two on the other side.”

White backed off with a hand held up in a wave before striding off towards one of the shuttle ports. Black and Lime watched their friend go until he was out of sight. They waited a moment longer before Lime tucked in against Black’s chest and hugged him around the waist. Black pet Lime’s hair until he’d calmed down enough to resume their date.

ඞ。。。。。

“Black?”

“Hmm?” 

Black pulled his eyes away from the Milky Way to look down at Lime laying his head on his lap. After their picnic, they’d decided to just continue lounging around and enjoying themselves until they got hungry again or more people came and it no longer felt private. It was hours later and they still had the little space station park more or less to themselves.

“What are… uhm… the courtship rituals like with Daemons?”

“Oh?” He smiled a little. “You don’t need to worry about that. We’ve been importing human culture since humans had culture to speak of. And we’ve been exporting our own to you. We’re not that different — no more than individual human cultures are to each other. And even if we were, I’d adjust to match you. I’ve already probably spent more time as a ‘human’ than a Daemon by this point.”

“That’s nice to know, thank you. …then…” Lime trailed off.

“…Yes?”

Lime blushed a little, rolling over on his side to look up at him. “…what about marriage?”

Black smiled and decided to tease a little. “Lime, are you asking me to marry you?” He brushed his fingers over Lime’s cheek and into his hair affectionately.

Lime’s face blush deepened. “…yes, actually.”

“Wait, you are?” Black paused, processing it a moment. “Yes.”

Lime sat up so suddenly that Black had to sit back to not have their heads collide. Lime’s green hair fluttered like a leaf from the movement. “Wait — ‘yes’???”

Black chuckled and slid his hands down to rest on Lime’s hips. “Was I not supposed to say ‘yes’?”

“Y-you can, of course you can. I just… You don’t want to think about it first?”

He tried not to chuckle again at how flustered Lime was. He thought he looked adorable, with his blue eyes wide and his cheeks flushed. He didn’t want to give Lime the impression he was making fun of him — Black was just happy.

“What’s there to think about? I love you. I’m already eternally yours. Marriage is just a formality.”

Lime sputtered a moment, his hands wringing the air as he started to quietly panic. “Ah — what do I do? I didn’t think this through. I don’t have a ring or anything! Should I get one? Should I do it over again? It’s just these last few weeks together have been wonderful and I just — what if I waited too long to say something and you thought I wasn’t interested? What do I do?”

Black smiled, feeling his eyes blaze with love, watching with nostalgic affection as Lime had his first proper self-conscious explosion in quite awhile. He didn’t let it deepen into actual anxiety, wanting this to be a happy memory. Black pet Lime’s cheek to get his attention.

“In my culture, a promise like this is usually complete enough with just a kiss. We can start there.”

With warm relief in his own eyes, Lime rose up on his knees and put his arms around Black’s neck so he could lean in to sweetly brush their lips together, hands cupping the back of his head. They kissed under the stars until they were both breathless.

“Then it’s a promise.”

**~~The End~~ **

This was only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, however, the end of _this_ story. **There is one more chapter** , though! So consider sticking around for the “post-credits” scene.
> 
> The next story in the series is **MIRA’s Grasp** , about Red’s wife Hana taking their child and trying to join her healing husband without MIRA interfering. It will be fairly short and isn’t necessary to read if you’re only looking for M/M romance. The rest of the series should all be M/M romance, though! Check the series page and consider bookmarking/subscribing to it so you get notified of the future stories. :)


	21. Post-Credits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue...?

Agent Newman of the Galactic United Security Council stepped out of the elevator and made a beeline to the front desk where two people were waiting for him. He’d hurried down to Containment the moment he’d got word that the Impostor had been successfully transferred to their custody. He knew that by the time he got downstairs, the creature would have been safely seated in the Interrogation Room, ready for him to interview.

The Impostor was only going to be there for twelve hours before LEGION took him back, so he didn’t have time to waste.

“Agent Abigar; Agent Udl. Nice to see you again,” he greeted with as little of his impatience on display as he could manage.

The two LEGION agents were Daemons, male and female respectively. Newman had worked with them both before and they were pretty reasonable folk, for Daemons. Hell, you wouldn’t even tell to look at them they weren’t human. They were as nondescript as it came, which was unusual for their kind. Abigar was more conventionally attractive, but in a way that was so generic you’d struggle to think of anything distinctive about him. Udl could have been any dark-haired girl next door if the girl next door type was likely to have resting bitch face. He got the idea they both cultivated those looks deliberately, but it did make him feel more comfortable around them regardless.

Not bothering with pleasantries, the serious-minded Udl handed him a file, which Newman took and quickly flipped through, smiling with satisfaction. LEGION rarely got their hands on an Impostor; Galactic _never_ did. The fact that this was a _living_ Impostor was an astounding opportunity.

It had taken him two months and a lot of convincing to gain access to the Impostor, even if it were only for a few hours. It would probably have taken him less time to accomplish if he hadn’t wanted it to happen here, with _his_ people and equipment rather than having to travel to one of those awful LEGION outposts. If he never went to one of those Daemon-infested places again, it would be too soon.

“Where should we brief you?” Udl asked, her voice low for a woman’s.

“No need,” Newman said, snapping the file shut again. “You sent me all the information I needed ahead of time, remember?”

The two Daemons exchanged glances. Newman saw Udl give her partner a look that said, _You deal with this_. Which, really, was pretty much their dynamic anyway as far as he’d ever noticed. Abigar was more of a “people person” than she seemed to be.

Agent Abigar looked to him and forced a smile that was carefully professional — which Newman preferred to ‘charming’ when it came to Daemons. Abigar knew him well. “You’ll probably want a refresher. He’s not just some ordinary guy with a bad attitude, nor is he ‘just a monster’. He’s… got a way of getting to you. Getting in your head.”

Trying not to show his irritation, Newman smiled. “It’ll be fine. I’m used to dealing with tricksy bastards. It’s the job.”

Udl pursed her lips in a way that reminded Newman of his ex when she disapproved of something.

“That’s… not really what I mean,” Abigar said with obvious attempts at patience. “It’s like he sees through you and thinks it’s funny.”

“Like I care if he laughs. Go on, get out of here and enjoy the city,” Newman said, trying to force joviality into his tone. The worst thing about dealing with Daemons was how they tended to treat humans like helpless children. “Grab yourself some dinner, catch a show, and maybe take a nap. My boys will look after me.” 

He nodded to the four men, all human, behind the glass. One of them — Agent Jacobs — caught the movement and looked up to nod politely to them. The other three men in the room were focused on the monitors, presumably watching over the Impostor. The Daemons nodded back before turning back to Newman. He smiled proudly. His team were strong and capable and looked it. He was no slouch himself, for that matter.

“Whatever, they already signed off. Not our problem,” Udl muttered under her breath to her partner. He was sure he was supposed to hear it even though she kept her voice low for the sake of plausible deniability. That went out the window when her kaleidoscope eyes turned to him, going from red to a flat and frightening black. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

Abigar sighed. “Udl…” His eyes moved to Newman again. “She means to say we’d be happy to stay here in case you have questions. We know you’d like to interview him yourselves, but we expected to stay to advise you if you ran into any roadblocks with him or just wanted a second opinion on something. As we said in our report, he’s very dangerous and can be difficult to question.”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.” Newman didn’t bother to try to sound friendly anymore.

“Your funeral,” Udl said and walked to the elevator. Her partner hesitated with a conflicted expression on his face before he gave Newman a clipped sort of nod and hurried to follow her, clearly concerned she’d leave him behind if he didn’t keep up.

“Assholes,” he muttered when the doors closed behind them.

ඞ。。。。。

“Good afternoon,” the Impostor called Brown said brightly as Newman entered the Interrogation Room a few minutes later.

“Cut the shit,” Newman growled, slamming some folders on the interrogation table in front of him. The sound echoed through the room. 

There was nothing beyond a simple table in the center placed more than eight feet away from any of the grey walls; bare save for a spigot and a coil of rubber hose that leaked the barest trickle of water. The floors were smooth metal tile sloped ever so gently to the center where a few discrete drains were set equidistance apart. Like the table, the chair the Impostor was restrained in was attached to the floor with magnetic force, keeping it from being moved. The area was lit dimly, brightest just over the table and almost shadowy in the far corners. The room was just cool enough to feel uncomfortable without being outright cold and the subtle scent of bleach lingered in the air. Every so often the light above would flicker with an ominous buzz. 

It was intentionally designed to feel impersonal and illicit; like you might enter this place and “disappear” forever and Galactic would turn a blind eye — assuming they even knew you’d been brought there to begin with. Hardened criminals had been left in this room alone before. When Galactic agents let themselves in twenty or thirty minutes later, many of them were sweating in spite of the temperature and ready to talk. 

Not so this “Brown”. He was fresh as a fucking daisy and twice as cheerful looking. The fucker even had a nice new haircut according to his most recently updated files. Styled it for him too, if the white spikes gelled away from his face were any indication.

It was the only thing Brown had asked for in the five months and some change LEGION admitted to having him. “Subject states hair is getting too long and falling into eyes, citing it as inconvenient when the use of hands is restricted,” the report said. Newman would have shaved him bald. The information LEGION had got from Brown in return for the haircut had been worthless inquiries into his diet. The only thing Brown had said in reply was that he preferred his red meat served as rare as possible, but he wasn’t picky. End of fucking report.

Newman stared down Brown for several minutes, trying to cow the Impostor with his larger build and over a decade of experience terrorizing criminals.

Brown himself was wearing a restraint jacket made of an impenetrable weave. Between the jacket’s fabric and the way it was belted onto him, even if he somehow managed to produce those tentacles or tongue-spear of his, he’d only hurt himself trying to use them. 

Still, the Impostor smiled at him, his eyes almost glittering with interest. He hadn’t so much as blinked an eyelash at the slamming of the folders. If anything, the faintest trace of amusement lingered around him, even though he’d been left alone in the room for over thirty minutes before Newman had entered and glowered at by a man twice his size after.

“Not going to grab your own chair, Mister?” Brown asked with the most convincing act of a dopey small town boy Newman had ever seen. “When people interview me, everyone has so many questions… It usually takes hours. I don’t want you to get too tired! Or maybe you just don’t have much to ask me…?”

Newman didn’t bring a chair with him for the opening move, wanting to seem more intimidating by standing over him. He was very fond of the old-school hardball tactics. Having it pointed out for what it was so boldly was like a slap in the face. He briefly considered retorting he was about to get the chair from the hall, but knew the Impostor would take it as a victory. Instead he raised his eyebrows as if only bemused by the comments.

“I don’t get tired.”

“Yeah? That’s good! Especially at your age, right? Me, I get tired after awhile. I’m glad you guys got me a nice comfy seat!” Then, with a sly smile that showed only just long enough for Newman to catch it before resuming his dopey act Brown added, “Mister, if you stay standing the whole time, I’ll sure be super impressed!”

Newman eyed the Impostor and considered his possible responses. After releasing a breath, he decided to ignore it all, casually flipping over a folder and letting his eyes run over the page as if he was interested in what it said and wasn’t at all irritated. He understood now what the LEGION agents were talking about with him getting in your head. It would look weak of him to take a seat at any point now, so he’d have to keep that in his back pocket for if showing ‘weakness’ might get him something.

“It’s ‘Agent’,” Newman finally said firmly. “Not ‘Mister’.” Set the rules of the conversation and you would always have the upper hand.

“Ah, is that so? Hard to keep track. Usually agents have this… I dunno… _vibe_ about them. Like they’re super scary and competent. Sorry for making the mistake, I’ll remember.”

He felt the blow to his ego, but Newman was professional enough not to let it show. Instead, he smiled his best smile. The one that had made a hitman wet himself and his ex pack her shit and leave without another word when she’d threatened to make their affair public. To his even deeper anger, Brown just looked at him with patient anticipation, presumably waiting for the interview to start.

“What do you know about MIRA creating Impostors?” Newman asked when the Impostor didn’t respond to his bad attitude.

“Nothing.” Brown seemed immediately bored with the conversation, all but rolling his eyes, though the friendly smile never left his lips.

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“Why?”

“They say you’re clever. Even if you weren’t created by MIRA itself, surely you’ve been curious and did your own poking around. Everyone else sent to Polus 339 seems to have been interested…” He dangled the bait, trying to see how Brown would react to the mention of his “friends”.

Brown just laughed lazily. “Why would I care? It didn’t interest me _how_ it happened. I existed. Isn’t that enough?”

Newman tried not to narrow his eyes at that response. “You didn’t want to know anything about what you were? Didn’t you want to know what you could do and what you were weak against?”

The Impostor grinned and tipped his head back against the chair, watching him through his lashes as if they were two crewmates hanging out having a beer together and shooting the shit after a shift. “I enjoy finding things out for myself. Passes the time.”

“And that’s why our guys got you.” Granted, LEGION wasn’t “our guys”, but Brown probably didn’t know that. Even if he did, it sounded stronger to make it seem like LEGION and Galactic were more closely tied than they actually were. “MIRA had information on Daemons. Easily accessible too. You might have been able to prepare yourself if you’d looked into it. At least you wouldn’t have lost quite so handily if you had. Hell, you got your ass beat by a human. A real fucking weakling too if the records are right.” 

He made sure to smirk a little as he said it, trying to get a rise out of Brown.

The Impostor raised his thick eyebrows and made a slow whistle that dripped with sarcasm. “Waaaow. You really think things out, don’tcha, Mister Agent? It’s almost like you’re giving me tips for next time. Don’t let your buddies on the other side of the cameras hear that. You might not get that next commendation. Well, unlike you, _I_ don’t have a wicked mind. I’m a good boy, really.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Newman sneered. He ignored the ‘Mister’ bit. The itch wasn’t bad enough to dampen his satisfaction at getting a reaction. Brown hadn’t responded to the bit about the medic, but he’d seen a flash in his eyes.

“Yeah, come to think of it — you _do_ strike me as someone who has a stick up their ass and can’t take a joke,” Brown replied, his expression still feigning innocence in spite of his words. “Gotta let your hair down every so often, Mister Agent! Humans have all sorts of health problems if they bottle things up… When was the last time you saw your doctor, anyway? You’re just cruisin’ for a hospital stay the way things are going.”

“Don’t waste my time. Tell me what you know about Impostors. You must know something.”

Brown stared at him, dropping the innocent good-boy act like a sack of bricks. There was no personality in his expression and a flat intensity to his stare — like a shark’s gaze — that made Brown feel alien for the first time since Newman entered the room. 

It made his skin crawl.

They stared each other down for an uncomfortably long time before Newman broke their impasse. He felt instinctively that the Impostor’s predator instincts had been tripped, so digging in his heels in at this moment would just provoke it further and he’d get nothing. A more specific question might bring “Brown” back to the conversation.

“How about this — do you remember when you were… what? — born? Created?”

The Impostor sighed, rolling his eyes a little and giving him a disinterested shrug from inside of the restraint jacket as the human guise was slowly pulled back into place. “Shouldn’t you have already asked Red about that? He’d be able to explain it in human terms for you, after all.”

Newman froze and realized his mistake when Brown smirked at him, his eyes suddenly looking animated again. 

“Yeah… That’s right. I know Red survived.” The Impostor’s lips curved into a slow smile, his voice soft as if inviting him closer to catch every word. “You’re still not too sure he’s ‘safe’, are you? That’s why you’re asking me for details.”

Newman glanced down at his files to buy himself a second to recover. He decided to feign disinterest of his own. “Well, if you don’t think it’s worth talking about, I guess we’re done here.” He gathered his files together and tapped them on the table as if preparing to leave.

“Not even going to confirm anything I said? Sneaky, sneaky, Mister Agent. But I don’t need confirmation from you.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I _know_.”

Newman couldn’t help pausing and looking at Brown. “…you… ‘know’. …ah. Someone said something you interpreted that way, huh?” He did his best to seem unconvinced, as if he wasn’t falling for Brown’s obvious trick.

Brown smiled, watching him with hard, glittering eyes. “No need to be coy, Mister Agent. I know.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “I know where _all_ my spawn are.” As if dropping a microphone, he leaned back with a satisfied smirk on his lips.

Newman was pretty sure that was new information. He’d never heard of Brown mentioning ‘spawn’ before this, even when LEGION asked him directly about it — at least according to the information they were willing to share with Galactic. He couldn’t let the opportunity to learn more slip away, even though it was clearly some form of bait. 

“…how many spawn?”

“Ah. That’s a very interesting question, isn’t it? But I never kiss and tell.” 

Brown’s eyes suddenly shifted to the door. A second later, Newman heard a sharp tap on it and then the sound of the knob turning behind him. Brown’s eyes moved back to him before he smiled at Newman, a light in his eyes that Newman couldn’t trace but knew instinctively wasn’t good. After a beat, the agent took a step back from the table to look at who had arrived. 

Agent Jacobs stood there, looking as apathetic and self-controlled as always, his suit and hair in impeccable order.

“I can take over now,” Jacobs said impassively.

Unnerved and wary, Newman splayed his hand on his stack of folders. He tried to tell himself that Brown was just trying to get into his head, just as the LEGION agents had warned him. All was normal. He and his boys often played this game of switching out during an interview and the unflappable Jacobs was a great foil to his own more bombastic approach. Really kept the subjects off-balance that way.

“…no need. We’re making progress. Only just got started, didn’t we Brown?”

“That’s right,” Brown replied as he smiled cheerfully at them. Then his voice went cold. “We only just got started.”

Agent Jacobs stepped into the room and Newman noticed too late the flecks of blood on his cheek. The other man let the door slam shut behind him.

ඞ。。。。。

Several long minutes later, Brown stretched all of his limbs with relief in the silence as they passed through the front office of Containment. The two Impostors left bloody footprints on their way to the elevator.

“Aah… I know we’re got a schedule to keep, but thanks for letting me take my time back there. I was getting hungry! Speaking of… it’s too bad Agents Abigar and Udl left. Oh well! If it’s fate, we’ll meet again,” Brown said, his sing-song voice almost playful.

Jacobs glanced over at him, but recognizing Brown didn’t expect a reply, he kept his mouth shut. He pressed the button for the appropriate floor and used his impressive security clearance to get them into a hidden shuttle hangar. In short order, they were seated in a mini-shuttle and then launched into space outside the Galactic hub and away from the adjoining civilian city the agents from LEGION were no doubt visiting.

“We have roughly an hour before shift change and someone notices anything. Longer if the agents on duty behave as usual and wander in late,” Jacobs informed Brown. 

Newman’s favorites always came in whenever they felt like. Jacobs felt a faint twinge of regret that more of them hadn’t been considered impressive enough to show off in front of LEGION so he could have indulged himself with taking even more down. That was probably just the echo of feelings from the original Jacobs and not himself, so he discarded the sentiment as unnecessary.

“Great,” Brown replied, making himself comfortable. 

“Where are we going?” Jacobs asked when it was clear Brown wasn’t going to say anything else.

“To look for some old friends of mine. I’ve missed them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah -- I couldn't resist hitting you guys with one last cliffhanger... for the road. ;)
> 
> MIRA's Grasp next! (Psst. Cameos... 'nuff said.) Whether you stick with me for the long haul or are content with stopping here, thank you so much for reading this story to the end! I hope you enjoyed it. <3 I would love to hear what your favorite parts and your favorite characters were, and if you have any world-building questions. <3


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